The dispute over the direction of the Scottish National Party has caught up with the party leader: Humza Yousaf quit the coalition with the Greens – and no longer found a majority in parliament.
Humza Yousaf was elected leader of the SNP in March 2023. Now he has announced his resignation.
Paul Ellis / Reuters
The Scottish National Party (SNP) is sliding ever deeper into crisis. Last year she had to urgently replace long-time regional president Nicola Sturgeon, who was targeted by the police in the wake of an internal party financial affair. On Monday, her successor Humza Yousaf had to announce his resignation after just 13 months in office. With this step, the SNP leader forestalled two votes of no confidence in the regional parliament, which Yousaf was in danger of losing this week. He wants to remain in office until the party has arranged his successor.
“Brutal business”
“Politics can be a brutal business,” said the 39-year-old during his emotional resignation announcement in Edinburgh. But the fact that the son of Pakistani immigrants has to fall to the sword is primarily due to Yousaf himself and his political miscalculation.
The SNP narrowly missed a majority of seats in the regional parliament at the last election in 2021. That’s why she entered into a coalition with the left-wing Greens, who, like the SNP, support Scottish independence. But last week Yousaf unexpectedly quit the coalition. The reason was a dispute over the watering down of Scotland’s climate targets, but also differences of opinion on the distribution of puberty blockers to young people.
Yousaf had hoped that he would be able to stay in power as head of a minority government until the end of the legislative period. But the Greens accused him of a serious breach of trust and announced that they would support a vote of no confidence against the head of government launched by the conservatives. Since no other opposition party wanted to support Yousaf, he ultimately preferred resignation to humiliation in parliament. He admitted he had underestimated the pain of the Greens, whose ministers he had chased out of their offices out of the blue.
Internal dispute over direction
Ultimately, Yousaf also failed due to the dispute over the direction within the SNP. The left wing of the party felt comfortable in the coalition with the Greens. Yousaf’s government took a decidedly progressive course not only in climate policy, but also in the culture war. In a gender law, for example, she wanted to enable transsexuals to change gender without a medical report despite a veto from the central government in London. And she was responsible for a new law against fomenting hatred, which critics dismissed as a threat to freedom of expression.
The right wing of the SNP is now close to the Alba party of former party leader Alex Salmond. This group advocates a bold course of independence, but has a more conservative socio-political position and is skeptical about the gender law. The Alba party had offered Yousaf support in the no-confidence votes, but the SNP leader was unable to meet their identity political demands without risking a rebellion from the left wing of the party.
The battle broke out openly last year in the race to succeed Sturgeon. The socio-politically conservative Kate Forbes, who belongs to an evangelical free church, Yousaf was only narrowly defeated. Now Forbes is once again among the favorites to succeed Yousaf. John Swinney is also given good chances. Observers trust Sturgeon’s former deputy to hold the party together thanks to his many years of experience.
The new SNP leader must not only find a majority among the party base, but also in the regional parliament. The Greens have said they could support an SNP minority government under new leadership. But this support will ultimately also depend on the person of the new SNP leader. If parliament does not vote for a new head of government within 28 days, new elections will be held.
Labor calls for new elections
The Labor Party is calling for an early vote. She argues that after two changes at the leadership of the party and government, the SNP no longer has a democratic mandate to direct Scotland’s fortunes. Labor has gained ground in the opinion polls and is now roughly level with the SNP, which was threatened with significant seat losses in a Scottish regional election.
A similar scenario is emerging in the British general election this year: in 2019, the SNP won 48 of the 59 Scottish Parliament seats in Westminster, while the Labor Party, which has strong roots in Scotland, was only able to win a single mandate. This year, Labor and the SNP could each win 23 Scottish parliamentary seats, breaking the nationalists’ years of dominance.
The SNP, which has been in power since 2007, appears tired of office, and Yousaf has not managed to break the negative trend. In addition to the gender law, he also inherited an internal party financial affair from his predecessor Sturgeon. Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell, who was once SNP general secretary responsible for party finances, was recently charged with embezzlement. Last but not least, the SNP lacks a realistic strategy to achieve its goal of Scottish independence. The poll high for the unionist Labor Party is also a sign that many Scots attach less importance to the question of independence today than they did a few years ago.