Humza Yousaf risks his leadership with Scottish power-sharing reset

On Thursday morning, Humza Yousaf tore up a power-sharing agreement with the Green party as Scotland’s first minster sought to reassert his authority ahead of this year’s general election.

By the afternoon, his attempt at a leadership reset through a very public break-up with his coalition partners was met with a no-confidence vote that could bring down his administration little more than a year after he took power. 

Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, branded Yousaf “weak” as he called for the no-confidence motion. His Labour counterpart, Anas Sarwar, backed the call, saying Scots deserved an election. And by the evening, his jilted partners within the Greens also said they would vote against him.

The no confidence motion, likely to come next week, is the sternest test for Yousaf, whose difficult first year in office has been fraught with ministerial scandals and rows with author JK Rowling over a controversial hate crime law. 

“We’re entering a defining period for the nationalist movement in Scotland,” said Iain Gibson, a government affairs consultant. “The first minister has staked his leadership on this new direction and, despite the immediate challenges, it’s really the first time he’s been able to stamp his authority down. If he navigates the vote of no confidence, then his position is stronger.”

Struggling with weak personal ratings, opinion polls have predicted that he is facing the prospect of Labour winning back many central belt seats if voters punish the 17-year SNP administration at the general election. 

Holyrood politics has also been overshadowed by the ongoing police investigation into the SNP’s finances; last week embezzlement charges were brought against Peter Murrell, the husband of Nicola Sturgeon, Yousaf’s predecessor.

Growing policy divisions with the Greens over climate change and gender identity have tumbled the government into the current crisis that has ended the so-called Bute House agreement, which since 2021 has provided the government with a working majority in parliament. 

Yousaf has come under growing pressure since the Greens said they would offer members a vote on the future of the power-sharing agreement after the government ditched emissions reduction targets last week. 

The Greens criticised the move as a betrayal of future generations, saying Yousaf had succumbed to pressure from the rightwing of his party. Lorna Slater, co-leader, said progressive politics in Scotland was under threat and called on SNP members who care about the climate, trans rights and independence to consider jumping ship to her party. 

The Green party was “raging,” according to one insider. “The leaders had been out putting their necks on the line to get members to back the Bute House agreement, and this is how we get repaid,” they said. 

Despite the short-term threat to his leadership, SNP figures said Yousaf’s decision had already forged a more united spirit within the party, allowing him to outline a more moderate set of policies to widen his appeal to the electorate ahead of the general election expected this year.

He should begin outlining these on Friday at a scheduled appearance at Glasgow’s Strathclyde University.

The coalition had already been heading towards an existential crisis over Green co-leader Patrick Harvie’s failure to accept the Cass review, which questioned some of the medical practices involved with gender identity services for children.

The Greens’ vote on the fate of the Bute House agreement — after the government ditched emission reduction targets — accelerated the inevitable divorce, the SNP figures added. 

SNP backbenchers, who earlier this week were rebelling against the government, welcomed Yousaf’s new direction. Fergus Ewing MSP characterised the Greens as “extremists” who promoted “dud policies,” such as gender reform and “heat pump fantasies”, that had alienated swaths of the population. 

Kate Forbes, Yousaf’s main challenger for the SNP leadership last year, said she would back him in the no confidence motion, insisting that he could win. 

To do so, the first minister would need to marshal all 63 SNP MSPs, plus the support of one of 65 opposition MSPs to block a united vote against him. The presiding officer would be expected to vote for the status quo in a tie. 

Parliamentarians and advisers have identified Ash Regan, a former SNP MSP who last year defected to the Alba Party of former first minister Alex Salmond, as Yousaf’s potential saviour. 

If he loses the vote, the SNP would have 28 days to find a new leader who could command the confidence of parliament. Failure to do so would trigger a new election.

Yousaf said that while “emotions are raw”, he hoped to work with other parties, including the Greens, on issues of common interest, such as a parliamentary vote next week on establishing protest-free safe zones around abortion clinics. 

But anger had extended beyond the Greens to SNP parliamentarians, with some contacting the Greens to express their displeasure with the move, according to one person briefed on the discussions. 

Graham Campbell, an SNP councillor in Glasgow, said scrapping the agreement was a “democratic travesty” that handed victory to an “overly vocal minority of SNP fossil fuel right wingers” and “ultra-left Greens,” undermining hopes for independence.

“Unionists will crow at the end of a united left, progressive direction Indy project,” he said in a post on X.