How the seeds of Humza Yousaf’s downfall were sown before he became Scotland’s leader

Explaining this week's drama requires a quick crash course in Scottish politics.

Humza Yousaf made headlines around the world when he took over as Scotland’s first minister in March last year.

He was, as newspapers from the Times of India to the New York Times pointed out, the first Muslim to become the leader of a Western European nation.

But to Scots, he was already one of the most familiar politicians in the country, having first been voted into the Holyrood parliament in 2011 and served a bunch of high-profile SNP cabinet positions in the years since.

As justice secretary from 2018 to 2021, he introduced the controversial Hate Crime Bill which finally came into effect at the beginning of this month amid a storm of criticism from figures such as JK Rowling and Elon Musk.

After the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, he was handed the health remit and took over the lead on responding to the Covid pandemic.

However, it was something else that happened at the same election which would ultimately bring about his downfall and resignation three years later.

First, a quick introduction to Scotland’s parliamentary system to readers who might be unfamiliar.

Holyrood is elected using the Additional Member System, which results in a parliament that’s more proportional to how the electorate has voted.

The exact method is a bit too complicated to go into, but suffice to say it’s almost guaranteed to mean no single party gets a majority. Proponents say this encourages parties to go into coalition, leading to political restraint and sharing of ideas.

At the 2016 election, the SNP fell two seats short of a majority, and then-leader Nicola Sturgeon decided she could run a minority government without having to enter into a formal coalition agreement.

In 2021, the party won one more seat, leaving them only one seat short of a majority. Nevertheless, it was decided that a political pact should be formed, and the junior partners would be the pro-independence Scottish Green Party.

This was formalised in the Bute House Agreement, named after the first minister’s official residence on Charlotte Square in Edinburgh. Its publication was marked with cheery pictures of Sturgeon waving outside the front door to the house alongside Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, who were about to become the UK’s first Green politicians to serve in ministerial posts.

But the seeds were already being sown for the downfall of Sturgeon’s successor.

Here’s the thing about the SNP: thanks to its position as the biggest independence-supporting party in Scotland, its members have a wide spectrum of opinions. They broadly lean to the left, but there are sharp disagreements over certain issues – most prominently, trans rights.

With their strong views on such issues, the Greens were always going to drive a wedge between the SNP’s different factions, and animosity towards them grew in certain wings of their coalition partner.

When Sturgeon sensationally announced her resignation in February last year, two of the candidates running to replace her – Kate Forbes and Ash Regan – said they wanted to end the Bute House Agreement. Humza Yousaf said he wanted to keep it. Yousaf won.

Meanwhile, the issue that would ultimately undo the fragile pact was ticking away under all this surface drama. In 2019, Sturgeon’s government had set a target of reducing Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030.

Ministers missed eight of the 12 annual targets before this year, and were told the 75% aim was unachievable. Earlier this month, the government scrapped it.

The Greens weren’t happy about this decision, and even less happy about having to justify it in the press. When it emerged that party members were planning to vote on whether to continue with the agreement, Yousaf decided to pull the plug himself.

Perhaps understandably, this only made the Greens more angry. When the Scottish Conservatives announced they would call a vote of no confidence – always a risk for the leader of a minority government – Harvie and Slater said they wouldn’t back Yousaf.

As mentioned before, Yousaf was leading a party that was one seat short of a majority at Holyrood. The Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens had said they would back the vote of no confidence (in fact, Labour lodged one of their own in the entire Scottish Government), so he was left relying on the only other party in the chamber and their single MSP.

That MSP was Ash Regan. You may recognise her name from six paragraphs ago, where she was running against Yousaf for SNP leader. In the year since, she had defected to the Alba Party, led by ex-first minister Alex Salmond.

So, in a spectacular twist, Yousaf’s political fate appeared to sit in the hands of his one-time leadership rival. Regan and Salmond reportedly wasted no time in seeking concessions from the SNP, asking for progress on Scottish independence and defence of ‘the rights of women and children’.

But in his resignation announcement today, he appeared to make a direct dig at talk of a deal between the SNP and Alba.

He said: ‘While a route through this week’s motion of no confidence was absolutely possible, I am not willing to trade my values and principles, or do deals with whoever, simply for retaining power.

‘Therefore, 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.’

Humza Yousaf made history when he became first minister. Now his time in the role is history. His successor will inherit some serious challenges: healing a fractured party, uniting the Scottish independence movement – oh, and running a country.

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