Humza Yousaf dramatically quit today capping an extraordinary meltdown triggered by sacking his Green coalition partners.
The Scottish First Minister tearfully announced he is resigning after failing to drum up enough support to survive a confidence vote.
Watched by his wife Nadia in Edinburgh, Mr Yousaf conceded he had ‘underestimated’ the backlash from ditching the Bute House deal. He added: ‘I’m not willing to trade my values… simply for retaining power.’
He said the government needed to be led by someone who could bring MSPs together, although he would stay on as interim leader to ensure continuity.
Choking up as he paid tribute to his family’s support, Mr Yousaf said: ‘I am in absolute debt to my wonderful wife, my beautiful children and my wider family for putting up with me over the years. I’m afraid you will be seeing a lot more of me from now.
‘You are truly everything to me.’
Mr Yousaf spent the weekend frantically wooing MSPs, but concluded there was no way of clinging on.
Allies insisted the SNP leader had not been willing to ‘do a deal with the devil’ by agreeing terms with Alex Salmond, whose Alba Party potentially held the balance at Holyrood.
Defeat would have risked sparking a snap election in Scotland, with the separatists fearing big losses to Labour.
It is a shocking fall from grace for Mr Yousaf, who took over from Nicola Sturgeon barely a year ago.
After he summarily ditched the Greens from the Bute House coalition deal – and publicly humiliated them by making them do a walk of shame in view of cameras – they pledged to back a no confidence motion tabled by the Tories.
It was expected go to a vote later this week.
Attention now turns to who will succeed Mr Yousaf, with signs former deputy First Minister John Swinney could take over as a caretaker. He admitted earlier it would be a ‘difficult’ day.
Ex-leadership contender Kate Forbes and minister Jenny Gilruth have also been touted.
Humza Yousaf announced he is resigning after failing to drum up enough support to survive a confidence vote
Watched by his wife Nadia in Edinburgh , Mr Yousaf conceded he had ‘underestimated’ the backlash from ditching the Bute House deal
Mr Yousaf walked off after his valedictory statement without taking any questions
Alba defector Ash Regan holds the key vote needed to save Mr Yousaf’s job
Former SNP leader and long-time Nicola Sturgeon ally John Swinney (pictured this morning) has been touted as an interim first minister
Mr Yousaf said: ‘Unfortunately in ending the Bute House Agreement in the matter I did I clearly underestimate the level of hurt and upset that caused Green colleagues.
‘For a minority government to be able to govern effectively trust when working with the opposition is clearly fundamental.’
He added a route through the no-confidence vote was ‘absolutely possible’.
But he added: ‘I am not willing to trade in my values or principles or do deals with whomever simply for retaining power.’
Mr Yousaf went on: ‘After spending the weekend reflecting on what is best for my party, for the government and for the country I lead, I’ve concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm.
‘I have therefore informed the SNP’s national secretary of my intention to stand down as party leader.’
He said the SNP’s dream of independence seemed ‘frustratingly close’ – even though most observers regard the cause as having faltered.
In a long valedictory statement, after which he ignored questions from the media, Mr Yousaf said: ‘If only every person in Scotland could be afforded the opportunity of being First Minister for just one day.’
Mr Swinney is said to have been approached by senior party figures to become an interim First Minister.
Whoever is chosen to replace Mr Yousaf will be the seventh person to hold the post since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999 – as well as being the second person in just over a year to have the top job.
Green co-leader Patrick Harvie suggested his party could work with another SNP leader, welcoming the ‘personal responsibility’ Mr Yousaf had taken.
He said: ‘Humza Yousaf is right to resign. His position was no longer tenable after he broke the bonds of trust with the Scottish Greens and with everyone who wanted a stable, progressive, pro-independence government. It is regrettable that it has ended this way, it didn’t need to. We draw no satisfaction or pleasure from this.
‘But the Scottish Greens could no longer have confidence in Humza Yousaf after he chose to unilaterally end the Bute House Agreement. In doing so he let down the large majority of Scottish Green and SNP members who approved the agreement who wanted it to work.
‘He chose to end a stable majority government and jeopardised the progressive policy programme that both parties had committed to and were working to deliver.
‘It is to his credit that he has taken personal responsibility. Now though is the time to return to some stability.’
But Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said there must be a Holyrood election.
Humza Yousaf decided over the weekend that there is no way for him to survive as SNP leader
Mr Swinney was Deputy First Minister of Scotland under Nicola Sturgeon from 2017 to 2023
Kate Forbes is seen as among the runners and riders to take over from Mr Yousaf
Mr Yousaf announced the end of the agreement, accompanied by a sign language interpreter, on Thursday
Scottish Green Party co-leaders Patrick Harvie (left) and Lorna Slater (right) arrive for First Minister’s Questions on Thursday. The Greens have said they will support a vote of no confidence in the First Minister
Mr Yousaf’s future is reliant on whether he can persuade Ash Regan (pictured on Thursday), the former SNP leadership candidate and now Alba MSP, to back him
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said Mr Yousaf had to resign after ‘lurching from crisis to crisis’.
‘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,’ the Tory minister 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.’
Downing Street said the UK government would will work with Mr Yousaf’s successor to deliver on ‘the real issues that matter to people’.
Mr Yousaf, who took over from Ms Sturgeon in March 2023, was facing two votes of no confidence, one in him personally from the Tories and another in his government from Labour.
Excluding the presiding officer there are 128 MSPs in total, but the SNP only has 63 votes while the other opposition parties have 65.
Over the weekend Mr Yousaf explored options to convince one of the opposition party MSPs to vote to save his government.
If he managed to get to 64 votes and tie the vote, the presiding officer would back the status quo, he would have been able to hold on.
The most likely candidate he faced the chance of converting was Ash Regan, the sole MSP in Alex Salmond’s Alba Party.
Mr Yousaf previously described her departure from the SNP in October last year as ‘no great loss’.
Ms Regan, a former SNP leadership rival to Mr Yousaf, wrote to him with a list of priorities over the weekend, including ‘defending the rights of women and children’. That is thought to mean accepting the results of the Cass review, which criticised gender therapies, in full.
The pair went head-to-head during the SNP leadership campaign, where she called for more extreme independence tactics and expressed her complete opposition to both transgender ideology and the Greens in government.
Her stance on gender reforms also led her to quit the cabinet during the voting stage in one of the first displays of discontent within the SNP on the trans issue.
JK Rowling even waded into the row, saying it is ‘karma’ that the First Minister is now reliant on Ms Regan, who defected to Alba in protest at the SNP’s gender ID stance.
Ms Regan was also pushing for a commitment to invest in the Grangemouth oil refinery, and unilateral moves towards an independence referendum.
Speaking on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, her boss Mr Salmond effectively laid out his demands, saying a ‘top line’ of any discussion with Mr Yousaf would be the idea of reviving the Scotland United strategy – which would see a single pro-independence candidate stand in each Scottish constituency.
But those demands seem to have been too much of a cost for Mr Yousaf to bear.
A spokesman for Mr Yousaf dismissed the idea, saying: ‘This is fantasy. There is no possibility of the First Minister agreeing any deal like this with Alex Salmond.’
Talks with the Greens look to have come to nothing, despite an increasingly desperate Mr Yousaf holding out an olive branch and saying he had not ‘intended to make them as angry as they are’.
Green co-leader Patrick Harvie said this morning: ‘I don’t think Humza Yousaf any more is in a position to be able to lead.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I don’t think there is anything that Humza Yousaf will be able to say to restore the trust he has broken…
‘Everybody understands how deeply regrettable and unnecessary this whole situation was.’
Speaking on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Alex Salmond said a ‘top line’ of any discussion with Mr Yousaf would be the idea of reviving the Scotland United strategy
JK Rowling said it was ‘karma’ that Mr Yousaf ended up reliant on Ms Regan, who defected to Alba in protest at the SNP’s gender ID stance
If Mr Yousaf was to resign immediately, then the Scottish Parliament would have 28 days to elect a first minister by a simple majority.
John Swinney, Sturgeon’s former deputy first minister, is expected to be appointed to steady the ship while a leadership contest takes place in the SNP.
Other possible candidates include Kate Forbes who came second to Mr Yousaf in the last SNP leadership election with 48 per cent of the vote.
But her socially conservative views on transgender ideology, gay marriage and abortion would also see her rejected by the Greens.
Tensions had been rising between the SNP and Greens over trans and Net Zero policies, but Mr Yousaf’s decision to scrap the so-called Bute House agreement was still a bombshell.
The Bute House Agreement gave the SNP-led government a majority at Holyrood but it came under strain in recent days after the Greens said they would put the future of the deal to a vote by their members.
Some in the Greens were unhappy at the Scottish Government’s recent dropping of 2030 climate targets and the decision to pause the prescription of new puberty blockers at Scotland’s only gender clinic.
Mr Yousaf rubbed salt in the wound by making his newly-sacked ex-colleagues do a walk of shame in full view of cameras.
In the lead-up to his decision to reportedly quit, Mr Yousaf had been desperately trying to secure his survival with an extra vote.
It is understood that letters were sent to Alba Party, Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Greens over the weekend.
First Minister at the time Nicola Sturgeon (centre) and Scottish Green Party co-leaders Patrick Harvie (left) and Lorna Slater (right) announce the signing of their coalition deal, which became known as the Bute House agreement, in Edinburgh on August 20, 2021
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross (pictured in parliament on Thursday) had tabled a no confidence motion in Mr Yousaf
Labour leader Anas Sarwar (pictured on Thursday) pledged to support the motion and tabled his own in the SNP government more widely
However opposition parties appeared to be unmoved by Mr Yousaf’s impassioned plea for support, with the dumped Greens, the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems yet to confirm if they will meet with the SNP leader.
On Saturday night, Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross, who has written back to Mr Yousaf but not said if he will accept his invitation to Bute House, said: ‘This is a humiliating and embarrassing letter, in which Humza Yousaf is begging to be allowed to keep his job.
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, replied that Mr Yousaf was ‘out of time’.
While Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said the first minister had ‘run out of road’.
Discover more from Today Headline
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.