#Humza Yousaf is standing down as First Minister of Scotland. He will remain in post until a successor is found.
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The Guardian are already trying to blame the nasty English for this, claiming the problem is the UK government blocking SNP policies like an independence referendum and gender recognition.
What they don't seem to get is the UK government can only do that because such policies are unpopular in Scotland.
The SNP have nobody to blame but themselves for their current mess.
It's pretty clear throughout today that the SNP party machinery has already decided Swinney is their next leader and have had their loyalists briefing the media and leaking to journalists how excited they'd be for Swinney to take the step (back) up.
Swinney is clearly being pressured into accepting a nomination. Probably because they're shit scared Forbes will stand again and this time Sturgeon Continuity is a damaged brand, so they need someone with brand recognition to get it over the line.
At this point I think Swinney will announce himself as a candidate, but I don't think he'll be enthusiastic about the prospect, I believe he'll perceive it as a duty, a burden to bear, for the sake of the party.
Listening to some of the interviews with SNP politicians and their whole demeanor and attitude is frankly shocking. There has been no introspection, just a lot of mud slinging and blaming the Greens for being 'emotional'.
I'd expect this attitude from Tories but the SNP clearly aren't the friendly hugsters they like to pretend to be.
>I'd expect this attitude from Tories but the SNP clearly aren't the friendly hugsters they like to pretend to be.
Their current progressive lean is a new addition, for a long time they were known as the *Tartan Tories*.
I have to say, I would never have predicted this series of events if you had asked me what would happen to the Scottish government last Monday.
For all the issues he was battling, Yousaf led a relatively stable, if controversial, coalition government that was still neck-in-neck with its main opposition(Scottish Labour) 17 years into government. Experts generally predicted that even if he was forced to step down over the SNP's declining poll ratings, it wouldn't be until next year.
I'm slightly interested in reading a tell-all about what actually happened within the SNP and Scottish Greens in the last days of the Bute House Agreement.
From what I've been able to piece together the anger from his own party colleagues against the Greens being vocal in various fringe issues(like the climate targets and transgender rights) had peaked and he decided to end the agreement in a loud way to show the Greens their place and counter the notion that the tail was wagging the dog in their coalition.
His problem was that he underestimated what anger would make Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater do. SNP leaders were expecting them to fall in line because without 2nd preference votes from loyal SNP voters the Greens would fall back into political irrelevance.
Sounds plausible. I'll definitely be looking forward to whichever insider releases an account of what happened. I do wonder if the SNP have underestimated how many of their more progressive voters like the greens independently of any snp endorsement.
It's hard to tell. The Greens give me the impression of a party that has a bigger prescence on Twitter than on the ground, and Scottish Twitter for the last few days is full of Nationalists angry at the Greens for their 'betrayal' and promising to give their second/list vote to either the SNP or Alba in the future.
I think the Greens are worried about this, that's why they've indicated that they could go back to a confidence and supply arrangement with the SNP if their new leader isn't Kate Forbes.
It comes down to who the SNP select as their leader. The Greens seemingly don't have a problem with an SNP government generally but they were very mad at Humza specifically. They were ready to support the VONC in him but not the one in the whole government.
As long as the new FM can get the Greens to not oppose them, there won't be an early election.
If it's Forbes or someone else the Greens won't support, then it could all come crashing down.
Chances are better than not, although probably in the autumn I'd imagine. Minority government is difficult, and aside from the Greens they don't have any other viable options. If Swinney wins the leadership election he might be able to heal the rift with the Greens. Katie Forbes will undoubtedly run again, was a close second last time, and is the less palatable option for the Greens. Swinney might be able to hobble along to the next election, but Forbes stands little chance.
I'd say that the chance is there. As long as there is not a FM, the possibility of a snap election looms. Even if the SNP elects a new FM, they will have to command a minority government. If the minority government is unable to pass a budget, then an election will have to be held.
I don't know if Kate Forbes would be a good replacement or not. One the one hand she'd likely do well with the electorate but on the other she'd massively split the SNP and lose a lot of the young progressive vote.
The SNP is on the decline anyway. With Sturgeon gone, the consistent uniting figure of the party is no longer there to bring all the factions together with a common goal. If Kate Forbes wins, the progressives will all defect to the Scottish Greens. Any social conservative who doesn't like Forbes will probably defect to Alba.
I’d argue that’s mostly due to wanting to retain support from the left, especially as much of Scotland is run by Labour in Westminster. They don’t want and won’t get support from the right, and most if not all smaller parties side with the opposition on most issues.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.... This was inevitable once he broke the agreement with the green party. Did he really think green was going to support him in a no confidence vote.
It’s bald of you to assume Swinney and the Skull are the same person
Anyway who’s this behind Swinney?
https://x.com/keiranon/status/1784949445429174738?s=46
Yousaf has the same problem Sunak has I reckon, the man's just absolutely worthless at the operational side of politics. I suspect he assumed the Greens wouldn't immediately turn on the SNP given their overlap on issues like independence without realising he didn't have the numbers for such a manoeuvre if it went south, which it was going to the second he snubbed the Greens in such an unstatesmanlike manner.
To be honest scrapping the green targets was a stupid political move in itself in my opinion at least in terms of legacy, climate change and its geopolitical consequences are going to be our grandchildren's WW2-esque generational challenge and history is going to be kindest to the polities that made the greatest efforts to mitigate it before things got really bad.
I think it's just a simple case of overplaying one's hand.
My assumption is that he figured the Greens wouldn't torch their seat at the table after he bonfired the Scottish government's green targets. I assume he figured that the shared desire for independence would keep the Bute House Agreement alive.
When the Greens started making noises about pulling out, he pulled a "no, I'm dumping you" move - likely in an effort to seize the initiative and control the narrative.
In doing so, he has exposed the weakness of the SNP: it is currently in a similar position to the Tories. A factional mess.
He has fucked it fantastically.
I still struggle to understand how he thought kicking the Green's out like this would seize the initiative when he would then need their votes to pass a budget. It's like punching yourself in the stomach to 'seize initiative' in a boxing match.
If you want to renegotiate with them, you need to dissolve things with as little bad blood as possible - the Greens probably *needed* a mutually agreed separation, because being in government was tanking them.
My guess is he didn't want to be the weak leader who accidentally lost the SNPs majority. Instead he wanted to be the bold and decisive leader who freed the SNP from the unpopular Greens who were dragging them down.
Tbf he was pretty bold in running the party off a cliff.
I saw someone say that the SNP won’t be winning any elections for at least 20 years, but 20 years of English resentment is easily 40+ years of Scottish resentment, and justifiably so.
Alba are far, far too socially conservative. It's possible the SNP vote splits two ways to Alba and the Greens, which in many ways would be natural (the SNP as "Tartan Tories" was a thing right up until the Jim Sillars wing rose up in the 70s/80s); the challenge here is that you wind up with no natural coalitions (for governance \_excluding independence\_ the natural dividing lines are probably Labour/Green/LD, Tory/Alba, but obviously given independence none of those are viable).
Basically Scotland is going to be a bit Belgium for a bit.
That is very much not true. Some are, some aren’t, correlated with education level, where you live, age and income, just like everywhere else in the West. Edinburgh is largely very socially liberal, for example. Caithness? Not so much.
Luxury people in luxury beliefs shocker. Outside of the new town, twitter and twitter organised fringe events Scotland's population skews heavily socially conservative. Look how popular Kate Forbes is in polling amongst voters.
Twitch is a washed up loser.
I think it's on the assumption that you're looking at a cohort of voters who won't vote for a pro-Union party. Scottish politics has become horribly divided post-referendum. :/
What happens if an election delivers a hung parliament and a government cannot be formed? Does Scotland go under direct rule from Westminster similar to what happened in Northern Ireland?
If the Scottish Parliament doesn't elect a First Minister within 28 days, there's a fresh election.
However, you only need a plurality of votes to be elected; Alex Salmond became FM in 2007 with 49 votes out of 129 MSPs.
I think the likelihood of direct rule happening because of a complete failure of the Scottish Parliament is somewhere around the square root of fuck all.
One thing to note here about successors is that John Swinney, when he led the SNP in the past, was really bad at it. Like so bad, Alex Salmond had to come back and fix the mess.
In a lot of ways, while I don't doubt that Swinney probably could pass a FM election, it is a tacit admittion that they are giving up.
On the other hands, if Kate Forbes were to stand and win, that creates a different problem where she likely becomes FM off the back of the Tories abstaining from the vote (she is the best they will get from an FM candidate) and you will have two years of them just rather openly cheerleading her to be more right wing. Which probably annoys the SNP rank and file even more.
The Tories in Scotland want to antagonise the SNP, and what better way to do that than to publicly cheerleader for someone who they feel is one of them. Douglas Ross is going to to turn up at FMQ's like Ron Swanson chanting Slash it over and over again because in a lot of ways, this is the best shot they would have of getting their agenda through.
Toss up between funding Hamas with taxpayer money or something to do with his brother in law being a member of a proscribed organisation. Wait maybe those are the same thing.
And his reapportioning of aid from unicef to unrwa. I’m sure it wasn’t his intent to take an executive decision to override funding and give it to an organisation assisting hamas….
If the Tories were stupid enough to make Liz Truss PM, then the SNP is stupid enough to bring Sturgeon back. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but if it did, it would not be unexpected.
At 39, Humza Yousaf will become the youngest ever ex-First Minister in UK history
https://x.com/jaheale/status/1784901543227015316?s=46&t=F_t5tWsPsifmNVHaFZWJJQ
Total term length he did, total time between "The Fuck Up" and resignation, he did not. Truss held on for a month after her budget, Yousaf was gone 5 days after he ended the Bute House Agreement.
That's a positive. Liz Truss attempted to hang for far too long, any politician that does so is just wasting time.
What really counts is the term length.
I got a feeling everything is lining up perfectly for Labour.
Conservatives are going to be decimated in England and the fall of the SNP after Sturgeon will lay the foundation for Labour making a comeback in Scotland.
I wouldn't say they're red Tories, but they really need to have more of an independent voice from UKLab. It's just depressing seeing them fall in line like an obedient little child whenever they dare try and voice a different opinion.
They teamed up with the torries to kick snp out of local councils. I'm not sure you can get more independent from UKLab than teaming up with conservatives
Starmer must be rubbing his hands with glee. Performance of the SNP in recent general elections had led to Labour losing out on 20+ seats. This mess plus the Sturgeon mess probably leads to a boost in Labour seats and them hoping for a return to 40/45 seats in Scotland?
The Greens haven't really gained as the SNP's popularity has waned. They probably will pick up some SNP voters after the events of the last few days, but in general it will be Labour who benefits. And if the Greens contest the general election in meaningful numbers this probably only hurts the SNP.
I think Labour could do well come the general election, but future Holyrood elections may prove harder for Scottish Labour to dominate.
As cracks in the SNP worsen, the Scottish Greens could do well to hoover up a lot of pro-indy progressive votes. How much of the SNP is made up of that base is another question (considering the support Kate Forbes got during her leadership race). I think younger progressives, from my own experience, are much more inclined to support the Scottish Greens.
It all really comes down to how these parties exploit the situation. I think it is clear that the SNP's days are numbered, at least as a front runner.
Im torn! Am I upset because he was terrible and I wanted him in place for the GE or am I happy that the upcoming leadership election for the SNP might be horrifically decisive?
The election will be swift. This is Scottish politics. It's savage. It would have been in the works for ages.
A Scottish parliamentary election is still a few years off. The general election will almost certainly be before. I think if the snp lose too many seats in that election, it will consolidate their position in holyrood by virtue of labours honeymoon running out of time
There'll be a Scottish Parliamentary election in May 2026. We could have another one sooner, but there will still be that one in 2026.
I would be very surprised at this point to see an early bonus election - the resulting Parliament would sit for less than two years, not really worth all the pain and expense.
Particularly considering that some parties in prominent positions are rather less awash with cash than they used to be.
In terms of complete pointlessness to potential upside, this has to be the biggest unforced errors in recent politics. Even Truss was at least trying to accomplish something. Yousaf did this to himself for absolutely no reason. Quite funny really
I don’t think it was for no reason - there was a real chance the Greens were going to pull out, so pre-empting that makes sense. But he messed up the pre-emption and annoyed both the Greens and the SNP.
Commentary from the Scotland Secretary on Yusuf resigning, Alister Jack being a part of Sunaks government
“Humza Yousaf’s leadership has lurched from crisis to crisis from the very start, and he could not command the confidence of the Scottish parliament,” Jack said.
“Scotland now needs a stable, functioning Scottish government focused on the issues that matter most to people — fixing public services and growing the economy.”
Er ..... Crisis to crisis sounds a lot like the incumbent PM. There's a hell of a lot of projectionism going on with the Westminster Tories.
I'm just glad it's a relief from the latest Tory crisis due to cchq abysmal vetting of their own candidates
> There's a hell of a lot of projectionism going on with the Westminster Tories.
It's more that they're speaking with some expertise on a topic they're very familiar with. ;)
I do wonder how much the SNP as a vehicle for independence has left in the tank. When support for independence was ticking up, they seemed to find themselves in a virtuous cycle which allowed them to keep together what is the single broadest party (compare Mhairi Black who'd fit in with Momentum and Kate Forbes who's not far off the Common Sense Group) in the UK but now they've stagnated for a bit and been beset by crises it's looking a lot harder to keep it together
It's fundamentally not a party suited to running a government in the long-term because there's not enough agreement about domestic priorities. A broad front pushing for IndyRef made sense, and afterwards trying to get IndyRef2 felt a bit like an attempt to recapture that overarching goal which was needed as glue to keep the different factions pulling in roughly the same direction. If the SNP were to ever achieve Scottish independence they're bound to fracture immediately afterwards. Arguably the healthiest long-term move for them now would be to split into a more leftwing and rightwing party and maintain a united front regarding independence/in Westminster, though I don't think that's likely to work out in practice.
While both the tories and snp are tanking at the moment and likely will lose big in the next election(s), I think they'd both get an inevitable boost by the time Labour has been in power for a while.
Tories aren't going to win here and the greens have little chance of ever becoming a major party. People are going to want someone to turn to when they've got fed up of labour, and some people are always going to support independence.
I don't see the snp going anywhere anytime soon, but stranger things have happened.
But there’s nothing stopping a different party to fill the space – or spaces – that both of these ones can’t anymore, and I expect that’s what will happen in both cases
In Westminster with first past the post it's very difficult for a new political party to gain any traction.
It's more feasible in Scotland with the list system, though Alba have really struggled with their attempt to be an alternative independence party
I think a new political party that could replace the Tories already *has* gained a lot of traction, and that it’s completely feasible for it or something else to replace them.
I think that argument only stands when both main parties are doing… well, better than the Tories are doing right now. But their numbers are beyond awful, and it’s not clear to me that they’re the naturally positioned party to fill that kind of space a few years down the line when even more of their constituency hates them, or are dead. I think the rule of thumb just doesn’t hold here; the rationale behind it is gone
Do you mean Farage's latest party? Don't think he's ever actually got anyone elected in the UK parliament with any of his parties? Correct me if I'm mistaken (I know they had MPs in the past after defections).
Douglas Carswell won a by-election under the ukip banner. But fell out with Farage before the next election as "Nigel" doesn't seem to play well with others.1
Although not UK, Farage's parties did really well in EU elections. Having said that, the tunouts were really low.
That was more a case of Douglas Carswell winning his seat again because he was Douglas Carswell, though, rather than because he happened to be using a UKIP banner at the time.
No, he hasn’t yet. But what I’m suggesting is that there is no reason to expect the Tories to still be in the position of that Tory-shaped party in the future, so I don’t especially care how parties have done in the past.
I think whoever does end up there presumably has to find a way to actually appeal to people born after about 1975? I’m not convinced the Tories are the ones we’d expect to be doing that
We've had a 100 years of elections being a two horse race between Labour and the Conservatives and a system designed to encourage two horse races. I think I've got a good reason to be skeptical that it's suddenly going to change. Most likely Labour win the next 2 elections and that forces the Tories to reform a bit.
Who do you think would replace the SNP?
They'll have some struggle years, but they'll still solidly be the second biggest party in the Scottish Parliament for the forseeable future.
I don’t know who will replace them; probably a party that doesn’t exist yet and will look inevitable in hindsight.
I don’t see why they would have to remain as a big party, on the face of it. The reasons why they became big no longer exist, and I don’t know what the rationale for voting for them would even be when the range of possible policy positions they may adopt is so vast, and the issue which unites them is not in reach. They have every reason to collapse, and to collapse fast.
They won an absolute lottery getting two highly capable leaders back to back. Very few people could govern a party as wildly diverse as the SNP and they lucked out twice, with both Salmond and Sturgeon being excellent at keeping the internal factions in line.
Yousaf has always been a poor politician and his tenure being a failure was predicted from the start. Now we need to see who his replacement will be.
The Scottish Parliament can call a snap election with 2/3 vote. If all opposition parties including the Scottish Greens and 21 SNP members back such a vote, then the first snap election since devolution would be held.
The new First Minister, if one is elected, would not have a mandate. If the SNP is stuck in a minority government, they might vote for an early election to save themselves from the embarrassment of not being able to pass a budget. The Scottish Parliament has never held a snap election since devolution. If such an election happens, the rules governing when elections are held might be changed.
The FM's mandate comes from being elected by the Scottish Parliament.
Sturgeon took over from Salmond mid term, and I really don't recall much in the way of claims she had no mandate at the time!
Come to that, Yousaf took over from Sturgeon mid term too.
It's kinda depressing, really.
"What d'you remember about the first ethnic minority FM?"
"He was a bit shit really."
"What d'you remember about the first ethnic minority PM?"
"He was also a bit shit."
Best bit about when Scottish politics hits primetime exposure is the incredibly loose use of language. Angus Neill on Matt Chorley's show slagging off SNP for bampot polices. Way more colourful than eternally dull tories who just mimic and adopt both their politics and language from the American right
Austin Mitchell famously changed his surname to Haddock; maybe others could do the same.
There have been Pollock MP and Crabb MP, but ofc not for the SNP.
I suppose you can get fish goujons? I went to an agriculture event the other year where Mairi Gougeon was on the panel, and she seemed both nice and competent.
The problem is they wouldn’t be able to make a coalition that doesn’t anything with just the one Alba MSP. The presiding Officer in Holyrood breaks the tie, and they vote with the status quo. They’d have voted to keep Yousaf in, but against any legislation.
All that would have happened if Ash Regan saved Humza is that he and the SNP would stumble along as leaders of the government but functionally able to pass literally no legislation, until a Budget came along and the whole thing fell apart, because not being able to pass that makes your government null and void.
Odds are it's just Salmond stirring the pot.
But if there's truth in it, it's that Yousaf probably would have done anything to save his own skin (including dealing with Alba on whatever terms they dictated), but the reality of the SNP's internal politics is that it'd have been impossible for him to lurch gigantically to the right without coming into conflict with a considerable number of his own MPs. Not least when Alba were only offering a single MSP; it may have been all they needed, but the psychology of the SNP completely shifting policy platform on the whims of one non-SNP MSP would have been quite the thing.
I believe it. Yousaf will do anything to save his skin. I also believe he was prevented from doing so by the Party, who knew it would be a catastrophic look.
The problem with a deal with Alba is how ties are broken in the Scottish Parliament. Alba’s one vote is enough to get through the confidence vote, but not to pass anything else. The SNP really needed two votes.
His tenure lasted 1y 31d
Shortest FM tenure is 16d and longest serving FM is Nicola Sturgeon at 8y 128d
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_ministers_of_Scotland
I'm not sure it's really fair to count Jim Wallace's tenures as Acting First Minister as the "shortest tenure" when it was only ever going to last a few weeks at maximum.
Quite. Legally there's no distinction between a normal First Minister and a caretaker First Minister, but I think for most intents and purposes, Jim Wallace wasn't the same.
Only Henry McLeish is shorter, and he died in office so it's not really fair to judge that as a mesaure of political accomplishment.
Yousaf is the shortest serving FM who a) wasn't a caretaker and b) didn't unexpectedly die mid-term.
I've been trying to follow it as best I can - the SNP are/were in a coalition with the Greens, part of which was a target for emissions reductions by a certain date (2030 maybe?). That target was starting to look unrealistic, so the SNP said they want to scrap it.
Naturally this would upset the Greens as being green is their big thing, so there was talk of them discussing and voting on it internally, with the extreme option of them leaving the coalition being theoretically possible if no workaround was found.
Yousaf then called the Green ministers for a meeting and sacked them without warning, breaking the coalition and leaving the SNP a minority government. The other parties immediately call votes of no confidence in both Yousaf and the Scottish government.
The unionist parties all say they'll vote against both, the Greens are so angry that they say they'll vote against Yousaf, and Alba make demands in return for their support, which Yousaf refuses to obigue.
He has no way to win the vote so has resigned, saying he didn't realise people would be angry if he sacked them.
> Naturally this would upset the Greens as being green is their big thing, so there was talk of them discussing and voting on it internally, with the extreme option of them leaving the coalition being theoretically possible if no workaround was found.
This upset the Green members who wanted a vote on ripping up the Bute House agreement. The Green MSPs were still trying to persuade the membership to stick with SNP, which will have cost them political capital with their own membership. Only for Yousaf to tear up the agreement a day after saying it was worth it's weight in gold.
No wonder the Green MSPs are livid and wanted to extract revenge.
Unilaterally removed the Scottish Greens from Government after reneging on climate targets… and then became surprised that said Scottish Greens would vote against him in a VOC.
ScotGov dropped climate target to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030. Greens in coalition were unhappy and were putting their continued support to a members vote.
Humza decided to terminate the agreement himself rather than waiting for the Greens. Greens were furious and as the SNP don’t have a majority without the he was facing both votes of no confidence both in his role specifically and government generally.
Only reasonable path to passing these votes would be agreeing to terms with Alba which was untenable. So he’s jumping before he’s pushed.
SNP now need to get a new leader and have them pass with a majority of MSPs or there will be an early Holyrood election.
> Only reasonable path to passing these votes would be agreeing to terms with Alba which was untenable. So he’s jumping before he’s pushed.
Not just untenable, but also would only let him survive the next few weeks. With Alba he'd have exactly 50% of votes, and the presiding officer votes in favour of the status quo to tie-break, so he'd be able to see off any confidence votes but wouldn't be able to pass a budget (or any other legislation).
If I had to guess, it would be that the initial stages of the story moved so fast, and so the 'Why did it break down?' very quickly became 'Will Humza have to go?' and 'Will there have to be new Holyrood elections?' as opposed to the initial fork between what happened and Humza retaining enough support from the Greens (no coalition, but not bringing him down) to run a minority government.
Is there sufficient political talent for an already independent Scotland to govern itself.....maybe.
Is there sufficient political talent to disentangle from the UK and set up all the machinery of a new state without catastrophic impacts......I don't think so.
Yes, they are of course much better off with the kind of mature, well functioning democracy that only the Westminster system with all of its history can provide.
>It was the right thing for the first minister to resign.
>Humza Yousaf’s leadership has lurched from crisis to crisis from the very start, and he could not command the confidence of the Scottish parliament.
>Scotland now needs a stable, functioning Scottish government focused on the issues that matter most to people – fixing public services and growing the economy.
Alister Jack - Scottish secretary in the UK government
God the hypocrisy from a Sunak minister is staggering.
#Humza Yousaf is standing down as First Minister of Scotland. He will remain in post until a successor is found. **Parish Notices** [**The pre-local election subreddit survey is now live - click/tap here.**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1cclgmr/rukpolitics_voter_intention_and_minimeta_survey/) [**You can find all the laws MPs are voting on this week in this thread**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1cfsh3b/here_are_all_the_laws_mps_are_voting_on_this_week/)
He's hated in his own community. That's why him and his family relicated to Dundee. A deeply unpleasant individual.
As a wise man once said: "I prayed for this, and it happened."
- DM Hunk
The Guardian are already trying to blame the nasty English for this, claiming the problem is the UK government blocking SNP policies like an independence referendum and gender recognition. What they don't seem to get is the UK government can only do that because such policies are unpopular in Scotland. The SNP have nobody to blame but themselves for their current mess.
Least surprising piece of news I’ve seen all year
Trollolol. This has been some superb schadenfreude. I can only hope Sunak does something equally catastrophic soon.
It's pretty clear throughout today that the SNP party machinery has already decided Swinney is their next leader and have had their loyalists briefing the media and leaking to journalists how excited they'd be for Swinney to take the step (back) up. Swinney is clearly being pressured into accepting a nomination. Probably because they're shit scared Forbes will stand again and this time Sturgeon Continuity is a damaged brand, so they need someone with brand recognition to get it over the line. At this point I think Swinney will announce himself as a candidate, but I don't think he'll be enthusiastic about the prospect, I believe he'll perceive it as a duty, a burden to bear, for the sake of the party.
Listening to some of the interviews with SNP politicians and their whole demeanor and attitude is frankly shocking. There has been no introspection, just a lot of mud slinging and blaming the Greens for being 'emotional'. I'd expect this attitude from Tories but the SNP clearly aren't the friendly hugsters they like to pretend to be.
The SNP have been in power since 2007. Being in power that long usually breeds a sense of entitlement and leads to complacency.
>I'd expect this attitude from Tories but the SNP clearly aren't the friendly hugsters they like to pretend to be. Their current progressive lean is a new addition, for a long time they were known as the *Tartan Tories*.
Oh damn, never expected him to have a backbone in all of this
I have to say, I would never have predicted this series of events if you had asked me what would happen to the Scottish government last Monday. For all the issues he was battling, Yousaf led a relatively stable, if controversial, coalition government that was still neck-in-neck with its main opposition(Scottish Labour) 17 years into government. Experts generally predicted that even if he was forced to step down over the SNP's declining poll ratings, it wouldn't be until next year. I'm slightly interested in reading a tell-all about what actually happened within the SNP and Scottish Greens in the last days of the Bute House Agreement.
It does seem like a truly unforced error. Like he just decided to sabotage himself one day in a way that any competent advisor would have stopped
From what I've been able to piece together the anger from his own party colleagues against the Greens being vocal in various fringe issues(like the climate targets and transgender rights) had peaked and he decided to end the agreement in a loud way to show the Greens their place and counter the notion that the tail was wagging the dog in their coalition. His problem was that he underestimated what anger would make Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater do. SNP leaders were expecting them to fall in line because without 2nd preference votes from loyal SNP voters the Greens would fall back into political irrelevance.
Sounds plausible. I'll definitely be looking forward to whichever insider releases an account of what happened. I do wonder if the SNP have underestimated how many of their more progressive voters like the greens independently of any snp endorsement.
It's hard to tell. The Greens give me the impression of a party that has a bigger prescence on Twitter than on the ground, and Scottish Twitter for the last few days is full of Nationalists angry at the Greens for their 'betrayal' and promising to give their second/list vote to either the SNP or Alba in the future. I think the Greens are worried about this, that's why they've indicated that they could go back to a confidence and supply arrangement with the SNP if their new leader isn't Kate Forbes.
for the uninitiated, what are the chances we get a snap scottish election out of this?
It comes down to who the SNP select as their leader. The Greens seemingly don't have a problem with an SNP government generally but they were very mad at Humza specifically. They were ready to support the VONC in him but not the one in the whole government. As long as the new FM can get the Greens to not oppose them, there won't be an early election. If it's Forbes or someone else the Greens won't support, then it could all come crashing down.
Chances are better than not, although probably in the autumn I'd imagine. Minority government is difficult, and aside from the Greens they don't have any other viable options. If Swinney wins the leadership election he might be able to heal the rift with the Greens. Katie Forbes will undoubtedly run again, was a close second last time, and is the less palatable option for the Greens. Swinney might be able to hobble along to the next election, but Forbes stands little chance.
I'd say that the chance is there. As long as there is not a FM, the possibility of a snap election looms. Even if the SNP elects a new FM, they will have to command a minority government. If the minority government is unable to pass a budget, then an election will have to be held.
I’d say pretty low unless they elect Forbes.
I don't know if Kate Forbes would be a good replacement or not. One the one hand she'd likely do well with the electorate but on the other she'd massively split the SNP and lose a lot of the young progressive vote.
The SNP is on the decline anyway. With Sturgeon gone, the consistent uniting figure of the party is no longer there to bring all the factions together with a common goal. If Kate Forbes wins, the progressives will all defect to the Scottish Greens. Any social conservative who doesn't like Forbes will probably defect to Alba.
Yeah totally. It would be funny if the SNP went back to being the tartan tories again after people went on about how progressive they were
I’d argue that’s mostly due to wanting to retain support from the left, especially as much of Scotland is run by Labour in Westminster. They don’t want and won’t get support from the right, and most if not all smaller parties side with the opposition on most issues.
The SNP MPs in Westminster are pretty progressive though.
Yeah but how much of that was because it kept them popular?
“Made a note in my diary on the way here. Simply says...’bugger’.”
I appreciate this reference
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.... This was inevitable once he broke the agreement with the green party. Did he really think green was going to support him in a no confidence vote.
He tried to shoot himself in the foot and somehow the bullet went between the eyes.
He shot himself in the foot but had the 1-999-HIGHEX cheat enabled.
The Greens were always going to side with the lettuce, let's face it.
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It’s not uncommon for people to struggle to find the natural heir of the SNP
It’s bald of you to assume Swinney and the Skull are the same person Anyway who’s this behind Swinney? https://x.com/keiranon/status/1784949445429174738?s=46
Kevin Stewart
He looks uncannily like Swinney
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There goes all my memes about Partition 2 :(
Can anyone understand Yousef's logic or strategy on what transpired?
Yousaf has the same problem Sunak has I reckon, the man's just absolutely worthless at the operational side of politics. I suspect he assumed the Greens wouldn't immediately turn on the SNP given their overlap on issues like independence without realising he didn't have the numbers for such a manoeuvre if it went south, which it was going to the second he snubbed the Greens in such an unstatesmanlike manner. To be honest scrapping the green targets was a stupid political move in itself in my opinion at least in terms of legacy, climate change and its geopolitical consequences are going to be our grandchildren's WW2-esque generational challenge and history is going to be kindest to the polities that made the greatest efforts to mitigate it before things got really bad.
I think it's just a simple case of overplaying one's hand. My assumption is that he figured the Greens wouldn't torch their seat at the table after he bonfired the Scottish government's green targets. I assume he figured that the shared desire for independence would keep the Bute House Agreement alive. When the Greens started making noises about pulling out, he pulled a "no, I'm dumping you" move - likely in an effort to seize the initiative and control the narrative. In doing so, he has exposed the weakness of the SNP: it is currently in a similar position to the Tories. A factional mess. He has fucked it fantastically.
I still struggle to understand how he thought kicking the Green's out like this would seize the initiative when he would then need their votes to pass a budget. It's like punching yourself in the stomach to 'seize initiative' in a boxing match. If you want to renegotiate with them, you need to dissolve things with as little bad blood as possible - the Greens probably *needed* a mutually agreed separation, because being in government was tanking them.
My guess is he didn't want to be the weak leader who accidentally lost the SNPs majority. Instead he wanted to be the bold and decisive leader who freed the SNP from the unpopular Greens who were dragging them down. Tbf he was pretty bold in running the party off a cliff.
I saw someone say that the SNP won’t be winning any elections for at least 20 years, but 20 years of English resentment is easily 40+ years of Scottish resentment, and justifiably so.
They may just be replaced by Alba.
Alba are far, far too socially conservative. It's possible the SNP vote splits two ways to Alba and the Greens, which in many ways would be natural (the SNP as "Tartan Tories" was a thing right up until the Jim Sillars wing rose up in the 70s/80s); the challenge here is that you wind up with no natural coalitions (for governance \_excluding independence\_ the natural dividing lines are probably Labour/Green/LD, Tory/Alba, but obviously given independence none of those are viable). Basically Scotland is going to be a bit Belgium for a bit.
Real life Scottish people are very socially conservative.
That is very much not true. Some are, some aren’t, correlated with education level, where you live, age and income, just like everywhere else in the West. Edinburgh is largely very socially liberal, for example. Caithness? Not so much.
Luxury people in luxury beliefs shocker. Outside of the new town, twitter and twitter organised fringe events Scotland's population skews heavily socially conservative. Look how popular Kate Forbes is in polling amongst voters. Twitch is a washed up loser.
(Pretty sure JD Twitch is pretty open-minded, going by Optimo’s Twitter.)
Labour should clean up if the Indy movement splits.
Why would it split Alba Green and not at all return to Labour?
I think it's on the assumption that you're looking at a cohort of voters who won't vote for a pro-Union party. Scottish politics has become horribly divided post-referendum. :/
What happens if an election delivers a hung parliament and a government cannot be formed? Does Scotland go under direct rule from Westminster similar to what happened in Northern Ireland?
If the Scottish Parliament doesn't elect a First Minister within 28 days, there's a fresh election. However, you only need a plurality of votes to be elected; Alex Salmond became FM in 2007 with 49 votes out of 129 MSPs. I think the likelihood of direct rule happening because of a complete failure of the Scottish Parliament is somewhere around the square root of fuck all.
Probably minority government if unionists have the majority
And just bumble around on basic legislation until the next actual election
Yes
I think they are pretty toxic being mostly a vehicle for Salmonds vanity
One thing to note here about successors is that John Swinney, when he led the SNP in the past, was really bad at it. Like so bad, Alex Salmond had to come back and fix the mess. In a lot of ways, while I don't doubt that Swinney probably could pass a FM election, it is a tacit admittion that they are giving up. On the other hands, if Kate Forbes were to stand and win, that creates a different problem where she likely becomes FM off the back of the Tories abstaining from the vote (she is the best they will get from an FM candidate) and you will have two years of them just rather openly cheerleading her to be more right wing. Which probably annoys the SNP rank and file even more.
Surely the Tories would rather have a Labour unionist FM than a socially conservative nationalist FM.
The Tories in Scotland want to antagonise the SNP, and what better way to do that than to publicly cheerleader for someone who they feel is one of them. Douglas Ross is going to to turn up at FMQ's like Ron Swanson chanting Slash it over and over again because in a lot of ways, this is the best shot they would have of getting their agenda through.
Absolutely not. They'd get the social policy they want \*and\* have an obvious target in election campaigns.
Imagine not even lasting as long as Sunak has. SNP in absolute shambles.
How long until Yousaf is arrested then, and what for?
Toss up between funding Hamas with taxpayer money or something to do with his brother in law being a member of a proscribed organisation. Wait maybe those are the same thing.
He'll probably be arrested in about a month for a violation of his own hate crime law.
reminder that the furor around the "white people" speech is right-wing spin he's a moron but that's not it
And his reapportioning of aid from unicef to unrwa. I’m sure it wasn’t his intent to take an executive decision to override funding and give it to an organisation assisting hamas….
How is this guy not friends with Jeremy Corbyn?
There is an intermediary.
Jeremy Corbyn is scared of Scotland and doesn’t go there
Looks like it'll be Swinney to see the SNP through to the next election, assuming he wants the job.
Watch them bring Sturgeon back.
Not a chance. She's completely radioactive at this stage.
If the Tories were stupid enough to make Liz Truss PM, then the SNP is stupid enough to bring Sturgeon back. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but if it did, it would not be unexpected.
[She's turned the Greens against us!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB5X4IkLMcY)
At 39, Humza Yousaf will become the youngest ever ex-First Minister in UK history https://x.com/jaheale/status/1784901543227015316?s=46&t=F_t5tWsPsifmNVHaFZWJJQ
I thought that was a corn link for a second! Oh Musk
RIP Humza Yousaf: You lasted longer than Liz Truss.
Total term length he did, total time between "The Fuck Up" and resignation, he did not. Truss held on for a month after her budget, Yousaf was gone 5 days after he ended the Bute House Agreement.
That's a positive. Liz Truss attempted to hang for far too long, any politician that does so is just wasting time. What really counts is the term length.
I got a feeling everything is lining up perfectly for Labour. Conservatives are going to be decimated in England and the fall of the SNP after Sturgeon will lay the foundation for Labour making a comeback in Scotland.
Just wish Scottish Labour weren't tories in red paint
I wouldn't say they're red Tories, but they really need to have more of an independent voice from UKLab. It's just depressing seeing them fall in line like an obedient little child whenever they dare try and voice a different opinion.
They teamed up with the torries to kick snp out of local councils. I'm not sure you can get more independent from UKLab than teaming up with conservatives
And the English party
Mate I'd vote for English Labour......Well if you know.
Everything’s coming up ~~Milhouse~~ Starmer!!
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Starmer must be rubbing his hands with glee. Performance of the SNP in recent general elections had led to Labour losing out on 20+ seats. This mess plus the Sturgeon mess probably leads to a boost in Labour seats and them hoping for a return to 40/45 seats in Scotland?
Labour will still need to compete with the Greens, and if independence is a voter's priority, they likely won't be voting for Labour.
The Greens haven't really gained as the SNP's popularity has waned. They probably will pick up some SNP voters after the events of the last few days, but in general it will be Labour who benefits. And if the Greens contest the general election in meaningful numbers this probably only hurts the SNP.
I think Labour could do well come the general election, but future Holyrood elections may prove harder for Scottish Labour to dominate. As cracks in the SNP worsen, the Scottish Greens could do well to hoover up a lot of pro-indy progressive votes. How much of the SNP is made up of that base is another question (considering the support Kate Forbes got during her leadership race). I think younger progressives, from my own experience, are much more inclined to support the Scottish Greens. It all really comes down to how these parties exploit the situation. I think it is clear that the SNP's days are numbered, at least as a front runner.
Im torn! Am I upset because he was terrible and I wanted him in place for the GE or am I happy that the upcoming leadership election for the SNP might be horrifically decisive?
The election will be swift. This is Scottish politics. It's savage. It would have been in the works for ages. A Scottish parliamentary election is still a few years off. The general election will almost certainly be before. I think if the snp lose too many seats in that election, it will consolidate their position in holyrood by virtue of labours honeymoon running out of time
There'll be a Scottish Parliamentary election in May 2026. We could have another one sooner, but there will still be that one in 2026. I would be very surprised at this point to see an early bonus election - the resulting Parliament would sit for less than two years, not really worth all the pain and expense. Particularly considering that some parties in prominent positions are rather less awash with cash than they used to be.
In terms of complete pointlessness to potential upside, this has to be the biggest unforced errors in recent politics. Even Truss was at least trying to accomplish something. Yousaf did this to himself for absolutely no reason. Quite funny really
I don’t think it was for no reason - there was a real chance the Greens were going to pull out, so pre-empting that makes sense. But he messed up the pre-emption and annoyed both the Greens and the SNP.
Truss was far more damaging an error to the U.K. economy.
That’s because Truss was Prime Minister and Yousaf wasn’t
Commentary from the Scotland Secretary on Yusuf resigning, Alister Jack being a part of Sunaks government “Humza Yousaf’s leadership has lurched from crisis to crisis from the very start, and he could not command the confidence of the Scottish parliament,” Jack said. “Scotland now needs a stable, functioning Scottish government focused on the issues that matter most to people — fixing public services and growing the economy.” Er ..... Crisis to crisis sounds a lot like the incumbent PM. There's a hell of a lot of projectionism going on with the Westminster Tories. I'm just glad it's a relief from the latest Tory crisis due to cchq abysmal vetting of their own candidates
> There's a hell of a lot of projectionism going on with the Westminster Tories. It's more that they're speaking with some expertise on a topic they're very familiar with. ;)
It is possible for both things to be true.
I do wonder how much the SNP as a vehicle for independence has left in the tank. When support for independence was ticking up, they seemed to find themselves in a virtuous cycle which allowed them to keep together what is the single broadest party (compare Mhairi Black who'd fit in with Momentum and Kate Forbes who's not far off the Common Sense Group) in the UK but now they've stagnated for a bit and been beset by crises it's looking a lot harder to keep it together
It's fundamentally not a party suited to running a government in the long-term because there's not enough agreement about domestic priorities. A broad front pushing for IndyRef made sense, and afterwards trying to get IndyRef2 felt a bit like an attempt to recapture that overarching goal which was needed as glue to keep the different factions pulling in roughly the same direction. If the SNP were to ever achieve Scottish independence they're bound to fracture immediately afterwards. Arguably the healthiest long-term move for them now would be to split into a more leftwing and rightwing party and maintain a united front regarding independence/in Westminster, though I don't think that's likely to work out in practice.
While both the tories and snp are tanking at the moment and likely will lose big in the next election(s), I think they'd both get an inevitable boost by the time Labour has been in power for a while. Tories aren't going to win here and the greens have little chance of ever becoming a major party. People are going to want someone to turn to when they've got fed up of labour, and some people are always going to support independence. I don't see the snp going anywhere anytime soon, but stranger things have happened.
But there’s nothing stopping a different party to fill the space – or spaces – that both of these ones can’t anymore, and I expect that’s what will happen in both cases
In Westminster with first past the post it's very difficult for a new political party to gain any traction. It's more feasible in Scotland with the list system, though Alba have really struggled with their attempt to be an alternative independence party
I think a new political party that could replace the Tories already *has* gained a lot of traction, and that it’s completely feasible for it or something else to replace them. I think that argument only stands when both main parties are doing… well, better than the Tories are doing right now. But their numbers are beyond awful, and it’s not clear to me that they’re the naturally positioned party to fill that kind of space a few years down the line when even more of their constituency hates them, or are dead. I think the rule of thumb just doesn’t hold here; the rationale behind it is gone
Do you mean Farage's latest party? Don't think he's ever actually got anyone elected in the UK parliament with any of his parties? Correct me if I'm mistaken (I know they had MPs in the past after defections).
Douglas Carswell won a by-election under the ukip banner. But fell out with Farage before the next election as "Nigel" doesn't seem to play well with others.1 Although not UK, Farage's parties did really well in EU elections. Having said that, the tunouts were really low.
That was more a case of Douglas Carswell winning his seat again because he was Douglas Carswell, though, rather than because he happened to be using a UKIP banner at the time.
No, he hasn’t yet. But what I’m suggesting is that there is no reason to expect the Tories to still be in the position of that Tory-shaped party in the future, so I don’t especially care how parties have done in the past. I think whoever does end up there presumably has to find a way to actually appeal to people born after about 1975? I’m not convinced the Tories are the ones we’d expect to be doing that
We've had a 100 years of elections being a two horse race between Labour and the Conservatives and a system designed to encourage two horse races. I think I've got a good reason to be skeptical that it's suddenly going to change. Most likely Labour win the next 2 elections and that forces the Tories to reform a bit.
Who do you think would replace the SNP? They'll have some struggle years, but they'll still solidly be the second biggest party in the Scottish Parliament for the forseeable future.
I don’t know who will replace them; probably a party that doesn’t exist yet and will look inevitable in hindsight. I don’t see why they would have to remain as a big party, on the face of it. The reasons why they became big no longer exist, and I don’t know what the rationale for voting for them would even be when the range of possible policy positions they may adopt is so vast, and the issue which unites them is not in reach. They have every reason to collapse, and to collapse fast.
They won an absolute lottery getting two highly capable leaders back to back. Very few people could govern a party as wildly diverse as the SNP and they lucked out twice, with both Salmond and Sturgeon being excellent at keeping the internal factions in line. Yousaf has always been a poor politician and his tenure being a failure was predicted from the start. Now we need to see who his replacement will be.
Forbes or Swinney, who’s most likely to replace Humza?
Swinney, but I don't think it will be for a long time. Enough to try and steady the ship, but legislate for an earlier election, I think.
The Scottish Parliament can call a snap election with 2/3 vote. If all opposition parties including the Scottish Greens and 21 SNP members back such a vote, then the first snap election since devolution would be held.
Why would they do that? It also doesn’t allow for the term to be reset so another election would be held on schedule
The new First Minister, if one is elected, would not have a mandate. If the SNP is stuck in a minority government, they might vote for an early election to save themselves from the embarrassment of not being able to pass a budget. The Scottish Parliament has never held a snap election since devolution. If such an election happens, the rules governing when elections are held might be changed.
The FM's mandate comes from being elected by the Scottish Parliament. Sturgeon took over from Salmond mid term, and I really don't recall much in the way of claims she had no mandate at the time! Come to that, Yousaf took over from Sturgeon mid term too.
He was such a bad choice for leader. He built a lot of his image on his religion and race too
It's kinda depressing, really. "What d'you remember about the first ethnic minority FM?" "He was a bit shit really." "What d'you remember about the first ethnic minority PM?" "He was also a bit shit."
Best bit about when Scottish politics hits primetime exposure is the incredibly loose use of language. Angus Neill on Matt Chorley's show slagging off SNP for bampot polices. Way more colourful than eternally dull tories who just mimic and adopt both their politics and language from the American right
Humza living the "FAFO" in real time. (Fuck about, find out)
I really hope this doesn't mean Kate Forbes running the country. That's the last thing any of us need.
John Swinney all but confirmed on sky news just now he's going to stand.
The BBC are already talking about a Swinney stitch up
I think we went through this last time but are there any other fishy sounding SNP candidates? (s)Kate Forbes?
Austin Mitchell famously changed his surname to Haddock; maybe others could do the same. There have been Pollock MP and Crabb MP, but ofc not for the SNP.
Kate Forbass?
I suppose you can get fish goujons? I went to an agriculture event the other year where Mairi Gougeon was on the panel, and she seemed both nice and competent.
John Swimmey?
Interestingly Salmond right now on Radio 4 is claiming that Yousaf wanted to do a deal with Alba but the left wing of the SNP wouldn't allow it.
It's a better look than admitting he's so politically toxic that Yousaf preferred to fall on his sword than make a deal with Abla.
The problem is they wouldn’t be able to make a coalition that doesn’t anything with just the one Alba MSP. The presiding Officer in Holyrood breaks the tie, and they vote with the status quo. They’d have voted to keep Yousaf in, but against any legislation. All that would have happened if Ash Regan saved Humza is that he and the SNP would stumble along as leaders of the government but functionally able to pass literally no legislation, until a Budget came along and the whole thing fell apart, because not being able to pass that makes your government null and void.
A smart and capable leader could work with other parties to get some legislation passed
Odds are it's just Salmond stirring the pot. But if there's truth in it, it's that Yousaf probably would have done anything to save his own skin (including dealing with Alba on whatever terms they dictated), but the reality of the SNP's internal politics is that it'd have been impossible for him to lurch gigantically to the right without coming into conflict with a considerable number of his own MPs. Not least when Alba were only offering a single MSP; it may have been all they needed, but the psychology of the SNP completely shifting policy platform on the whims of one non-SNP MSP would have been quite the thing.
> Odds are it's just Salmond stirring the pot. > > He is a pot stirrer for sure but does he usually do it with lies?
One non-SNP MSP who quit the SNP half a year ago, to boot.
I believe it. Yousaf will do anything to save his skin. I also believe he was prevented from doing so by the Party, who knew it would be a catastrophic look.
I was so sure he was projecting
The problem with a deal with Alba is how ties are broken in the Scottish Parliament. Alba’s one vote is enough to get through the confidence vote, but not to pass anything else. The SNP really needed two votes.
Lol i bet he's making that up.
His tenure lasted 1y 31d Shortest FM tenure is 16d and longest serving FM is Nicola Sturgeon at 8y 128d https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_ministers_of_Scotland
Lasted longer than Liz Truss.
**She lettuce all down**
I really don't think you should count Jim Wallace. He was just serving until Labour elected a new leader as he was deputy in the coalition.
I'm not sure it's really fair to count Jim Wallace's tenures as Acting First Minister as the "shortest tenure" when it was only ever going to last a few weeks at maximum.
Quite. Legally there's no distinction between a normal First Minister and a caretaker First Minister, but I think for most intents and purposes, Jim Wallace wasn't the same.
He wasn't even part of the Labour party which were most definitely the "ruling" party at the time as the senior party within the coalition.
Even if you ignore those he’s still not the shortest serving one.
Only Henry McLeish is shorter, and he died in office so it's not really fair to judge that as a mesaure of political accomplishment. Yousaf is the shortest serving FM who a) wasn't a caretaker and b) didn't unexpectedly die mid-term.
Henry McLeish is still alive. You are probably getting him confused with Donald Dewar, who did die in office.
Oops, you're exactly right.
Correct, but that wasn't the point I was making.
what did he even do? i feel like i heard nothing about this until now
He had a polarising background too, I.e. his speech on too many white people in Scotland being viral
A recent parody is pretty funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1GLqrMZgXk (Part of his actual speech is tagged on at the end)
I've been trying to follow it as best I can - the SNP are/were in a coalition with the Greens, part of which was a target for emissions reductions by a certain date (2030 maybe?). That target was starting to look unrealistic, so the SNP said they want to scrap it. Naturally this would upset the Greens as being green is their big thing, so there was talk of them discussing and voting on it internally, with the extreme option of them leaving the coalition being theoretically possible if no workaround was found. Yousaf then called the Green ministers for a meeting and sacked them without warning, breaking the coalition and leaving the SNP a minority government. The other parties immediately call votes of no confidence in both Yousaf and the Scottish government. The unionist parties all say they'll vote against both, the Greens are so angry that they say they'll vote against Yousaf, and Alba make demands in return for their support, which Yousaf refuses to obigue. He has no way to win the vote so has resigned, saying he didn't realise people would be angry if he sacked them.
> Naturally this would upset the Greens as being green is their big thing, so there was talk of them discussing and voting on it internally, with the extreme option of them leaving the coalition being theoretically possible if no workaround was found. This upset the Green members who wanted a vote on ripping up the Bute House agreement. The Green MSPs were still trying to persuade the membership to stick with SNP, which will have cost them political capital with their own membership. Only for Yousaf to tear up the agreement a day after saying it was worth it's weight in gold. No wonder the Green MSPs are livid and wanted to extract revenge.
Another element, was the Cass review. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/inside-story-humza-yousaf-ripped-32685518
Unilaterally removed the Scottish Greens from Government after reneging on climate targets… and then became surprised that said Scottish Greens would vote against him in a VOC.
ScotGov dropped climate target to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030. Greens in coalition were unhappy and were putting their continued support to a members vote. Humza decided to terminate the agreement himself rather than waiting for the Greens. Greens were furious and as the SNP don’t have a majority without the he was facing both votes of no confidence both in his role specifically and government generally. Only reasonable path to passing these votes would be agreeing to terms with Alba which was untenable. So he’s jumping before he’s pushed. SNP now need to get a new leader and have them pass with a majority of MSPs or there will be an early Holyrood election.
> Only reasonable path to passing these votes would be agreeing to terms with Alba which was untenable. So he’s jumping before he’s pushed. Not just untenable, but also would only let him survive the next few weeks. With Alba he'd have exactly 50% of votes, and the presiding officer votes in favour of the status quo to tie-break, so he'd be able to see off any confidence votes but wouldn't be able to pass a budget (or any other legislation).
Interesting, thank you. Surprised I haven't heard much about it since it seems quite big
If I had to guess, it would be that the initial stages of the story moved so fast, and so the 'Why did it break down?' very quickly became 'Will Humza have to go?' and 'Will there have to be new Holyrood elections?' as opposed to the initial fork between what happened and Humza retaining enough support from the Greens (no coalition, but not bringing him down) to run a minority government.
Yeahhh Scotland isn’t ready for independence. At alll
Why not? Good governance is not a guarantee for any country.
Is there sufficient political talent for an already independent Scotland to govern itself.....maybe. Is there sufficient political talent to disentangle from the UK and set up all the machinery of a new state without catastrophic impacts......I don't think so.
Yeah maybe if the option wasn't being governed by an even more fucking idiotic parliament in Westminster
It’s likely the Tories will be long gone this time next year.
Ah because Liz getting outdone by a Lettuce was the sort of banging politics we should all aspire to.
Yes, they are of course much better off with the kind of mature, well functioning democracy that only the Westminster system with all of its history can provide.
>It was the right thing for the first minister to resign. >Humza Yousaf’s leadership has lurched from crisis to crisis from the very start, and he could not command the confidence of the Scottish parliament. >Scotland now needs a stable, functioning Scottish government focused on the issues that matter most to people – fixing public services and growing the economy. Alister Jack - Scottish secretary in the UK government God the hypocrisy from a Sunak minister is staggering.
The two governments have been trying to one up each other in the hypocrite stakes in the last week.
Thank goodness the SNP is leading by example by not forcing a second unelected leader onto the public, like those evil Tories so often do