Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf was fighting for his job on Friday after the opposition Conservatives tabled a motion of no-confidence in his leadership that he is set to lose unless he can win the backing of a least one MSP from another party. File photo by Robert Perry/EPA-EFE
April 26 (UPI) — Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf was fighting for his job on Friday after the opposition Conservatives tabled a motion of no-confidence in his leadership that he is set to lose unless he can win the backing of a least one member from another party.
The Scottish Conservatives launched their campaign to oust the Scottish Nationalist Party’s Yousaf on Thursday evening hours after he blew up his party’s coalition with the Scottish Greens, saying in a post on X that he was “a lame duck” leader “unfit to be first minister.”
“Humza Yousaf has failed as first minister. In just over a year in power, he has presided over a litany of failures, U-turns and scandal,” the statement read.
“His disastrous SNP Government has abandoned oil and gas jobs, halted progress on vital road upgrades, backed dangerous gender self-ID laws and seen Scotland’s school standards drop to their worst level on record.”
Scottish Labor said it would table a separate no-confidence motion in the SNP government as early as Friday afternoon.
Incensed by being unceremoniously kicked from their three-year pact with the SNP earlier Thursday after a row over the ditching of targets for carbon emissions cuts, the Scottish Greens confirmed they would vote for the no-confidence motion.
Co-leader Lorna Slater said her party had voted to elect Yousaf as first minister in March 2023 with the understanding the two parties would continue to work together to deliver the progressive program set out in their Bute House Agreement that brought the coalition to power in a 2021 election.
“We supported him in order to deliver rent controls, a ban on conversion therapy, a new national park, and increased action on the climate emergency. It was based on a commitment to constructive ways of working together,” said Slater.
“His decision to end that agreement has without doubt called into question the delivery of that program. 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.”
Yousaf goes in to the no-confidence vote in the 129-seat Scottish Parliament, expected on Wednesday or Thursday, without the majority the Greens’ seven MSPs provided meaning a real risk he could be unseated — forced to resign — unless he can gain support from other parties.
Losing would trigger a fresh leadership contest and potentially an election if parliament is unable to elect a new first minister within 28 days. If Labor’s no-confidence vote passes, the government would have to resign, also triggering an election.
Counting the vote of Holyrood’s presiding officer, who by convention always votes for the status quo in the event of a tied vote, plus the SNP’s 63 puts Yousaf one vote short of the majority he will need to survive.
The math has all eyes turned toward a potential kingmaker in the form of Yousaf arch rival, former SNP government minister Ash Regan who ran against him in the election for first minister before defecting to the Alba Party of former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond.
Regan published a list of demands Friday she wants Yousaf to commit to in return for her vote.
