Humza Yousaf’s career in peril as SNP-Green coalition collapses

The Scottish nationalist project moved another step closer to oblivion today after the first minister put his entire political career in peril by tearing a key element of Nicola Sturgeon’s legacy to shreds.

This morning, Humza Yousaf scrapped the three year long power-sharing deal between the SNP and the independence-supporting Scottish Greens, confirming that his party will return to minority rule with “immediate effect”.

The risky decision could result in him being forced to quit as first minister next week.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has said that he will hold a no-confidence vote in the SNP leader and, in a major blow to Yousaf, the furious Greens confirmed this afternoon that they will back this motion, due to be voted on next week. 

The SNP-Green coalition is “worth it’s weight in gold,” gushed none other than Humza Yousaf back in February 2023, speaking to The National during the SNP leadership election. “A minority government, I think, would be disastrous,” he added. 

This is the same Yousaf who, this morning, summoned Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater to Bute House to announce that he was turfing them out of government. 

An SNP cabinet meeting swiftly followed. According to a Scottish government spokesperson, cabinet members “enthusiastically endorsed this position” and were banging tables in support of the collapse of the coalition.

The Scottish Greens, meanwhile, have not minced their words. “The first minister has decided to capitulate to the most reactionary, backward-looking forces within the SNP,” fumed Harvie. 

Slater, meanwhile, when asked whether the decision to scrap the coalition was solely the first minister’s, insisted “This was his decision.”

Yet others will view this as Yousaf getting in there first – and ditching the Greens before they had a chance to ditch the SNP. 

It’s no secret that relations have been rocky between the two parties recently. These tensions came to a head last week when, in a major U-turn, the Scottish government ditched its legally binding target to cut carbon emissions by 75 per cent by 2030, admitting the goal was “out of reach”. 

Writing in Reaction, Giga Watt says Yousaf was set up to fail by his performative predecessor, who had no understanding of the scale of the commitment required to meet this ambitious net zero targets when she announced it. But the Scottish Greens, needless to say, weren’t quite so understanding. 

What now? 

A no-confidence vote in Yousaf could be held as early as Thursday next week. 

The Greens’ decision to vote against him, rather than abstain, puts Yousaf in a dangerous position. If all opposition MSPs join forces against the first minister, he will lose the vote. The SNP has 63 MSPs, its opponents have 65. Meaning the first minister’s fate hangs on just a single opposition MSP switching sides. 

Strictly speaking, the vote is not binding but politically, Yousaf would more or less be obliged to stand down if he loses it. 

Despite the restraints of returning to a majority government, Fergus Ewing, the SNP member for Inverness and Nairn and a long-time critic of the coalition, declared today a “happy day.”

The SNP, he added, “has undergone a kind of late adolescence where we fell in with the wrong crowd. But just as teenage years come to an end, so the dreadful, damaging association with the Greens has today terminated.”

Farewell Greens. And – quite possibly – farewell in advance, Yousaf.

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