Humza Yousaf in peril as Greens say they will
back no confidence motion
Former coalition partners’ decision brings Scottish
first minister to brink of losing vote, which could make his position untenable
Severin
Carrell Scotland editor
Thu 25 Apr
2024 19.14 BST
Humza
Yousaf could be forced to quit as Scotland’s first minister after the Scottish
Greens announced they would back a motion of no confidence against him at
Holyrood.
The
Scottish National party’s former coalition partners declared they would vote
next week against the man who had “betrayed” them, hours after he unilaterally
ended their power-sharing deal.
Yousaf
stunned allies and opponents on Thursday morning by announcing he was suddenly
axing the arrangement with the Greens signed by Nicola Sturgeon in 2021, hailed
then as a new era in consensus politics.
He called
in Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater – the Scottish Greens’ co-leaders and junior
ministers in his government – early in the morning to tell them they had been
sacked and that he was ripping up the agreement.
The move –
quickly denounced by Harvie and Slater as “cowardly” and “weak” – followed
mounting anger within the SNP about a host of electorally unpopular policies
that Yousaf’s internal critics believe have been forced on the party by the
Bute House coalition agreement.
His
decision was then rubber-stamped by an emergency cabinet meeting, with Harvie
and Slater absent, at 8.30am, triggering a dramatic series of events that
culminated in the Greens announcing they would support a Conservative no
confidence motion scheduled for next week.
“It is very
clear that Humza Yousaf has decided to burn his bridges with a progressive
pro-independence majority that was established by the Bute House agreement,”
Harvie told BBC Radio Scotland.
That brings
Yousaf, who only became first minister in April 2023, to the brink of defeat,
forcing him into a series of deals with his internal critics, seven of whom
rebelled in a parliamentary vote earlier this week, and his nationalist rivals
in the centre-right Alba party set up by Yousaf’s fiercest critic, the former
SNP first minister Alex Salmond.
The SNP is
two votes short of a majority at Holyrood. Yousaf now has to rally every vote
from his deeply split party and secure the backing of a former SNP minister,
Ash Regan, who defected to Alba last October in protest at the SNP’s stance on
gender reform and its soft-pedalling on independence.
If the
result is tied, Holyrood’s presiding officer, Alison Johnstone, a former Green
MSP, will have to make a casting vote in favour of Yousaf, under a protocol
that presiding officers vote for the status quo.
Holyrood
officials made clear that as the vote is not binding, under the Scottish
parliament’s rules it would be up to the first minister to decide how to
respond. However, losing a vote of no confidence so close to a general election
in which the SNP could lose dozens of seats to Labour could make his position
untenable.
Harvie and
Slater later told reporters at Holyrood they could not envisage working with
Yousaf on new policies or legislation after his earlier betrayal.
Harvie said
the full Scottish Greens parliamentary group had decided unanimously to support
the no confidence motion, albeit with a “heavy heart”, adding that Yousaf had
chosen to “capitulate” to socially and economically conservative voices in the
SNP.
He added
that the Bute House agreement had been a confidence and supply arrangement with
very clear processes for sorting out policy disagreements. However, he said
Yousaf “chose to rip it up, and that can’t be consequence-free”.
Slater
said: “When we voted for Humza Yousaf’s appointment last year, it was on the
basis that we would continue to work together to deliver the progressive policy
programme as laid out in the Bute House agreement.
“[His]
decision today to end that agreement has without doubt called into question the
delivery of that programme. It came with no reassurance that his minority
government would continue with these objectives. And it abruptly ends the
pro-independence majority government which the public voted for, and which
members of both parties supported.”
The
catalyst for the crisis had been his government’s decision last week to abandon
its “world-leading” target to cut Scotland’s carbon emissions by 75% by 2030, a
move that provoked an open rebellion by Scottish Green party members.
That
rebellion in turn forced Harvie and Slater to agree to an emergency vote by the
Scottish Green party on staying in government – a concession that rattled
Yousaf and immediately raised questions about the coalition’s viability.
The first
minister, who is facing the loss of dozens of seats to Labour in the general
election, said after the cabinet meeting on Thursday that the Bute House
agreement had “served its purpose”. It had come to “its natural conclusion” and
no longer gave his government the stability it needed, he said.
He made
clear the SNP would soon abandon or water down some policies it had previously
championed, now that government policy was no longer framed by the agreement.
“We will of
course have to be very wise and careful around the battles that we choose to
fight, and we will be absolutely and entirely focused on the people of
Scotland’s priorities,” he said.
The first
minister insisted he was proud of what the coalition with the Greens had
achieved, including nationalising rail services, taking 100,000 children out of
poverty, bolstering green energy production and cutting taxes for the poorest.
However,
later, during a fractious and rowdy session of first minister’s questions at
Holyrood, it became clear Yousaf’s government faced much greater instability.
Labour used
the session to call for a snap Holyrood election. Douglas Ross, the Scottish
Conservative leader, then announced that the Tories would be tabling the vote
of no confidence. Yousaf was “not fit for office”, Ross said. “We said at the
beginning this was a coalition of chaos and it has ended in chaos.”
Speaking as
a backbench MSP for the first time in nearly three years, Harvie accused the
first minister of caving in to rightwing forces in Scottish nationalism and in
parliament. He named Salmond, who is widely believed to be orchestrating
attacks on Yousaf’s leadership; Fergus Ewing, the most vociferous SNP critic of
the Greens deal; and Ross.
“Who does
the first minister think he has pleased most today – Douglas Ross, Fergus Ewing
or Alex Salmond? And which of them does he think he can rely on for a majority
in parliament now?” Harvie asked.
He
dismissed Yousaf’s assurances earlier in the day that he still wanted to
collaborate with the Greens on climate policy, fair taxation and anti-poverty
measures.
“That has
significant consequences for how the Scottish Greens position ourselves in
parliament, and the first minister cannot rely on Green support while being
dictated to by forces on the right,” Harvie said.
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