Yousaf refuses to stand down and vows to win no-confidence vote

We are going to leave this blog here for today; here’s a recap of what has been happening in Scottish politics:

• Scotland’s under-fire First Minister has insisted he will not resign, despite facing a vote of no confidence in his leadership.

• Asked whether he intends to resign, Humza Yousaf told the PA news agency: “No, I fully intend to not just win that vote but I intend to fight to make sure that the Government continues to deliver on the priorities of the people. Like, for example, investing in affordable housing.”
• The Scottish Conservatives have put forward the motion of no confidence in Mr Yousaf as First Minister, while Labour has submitted a similar motion, saying the party has no confidence in the Scottish Government.
• Mr Yousaf is battling for his political survival after terminating the powersharing deal the SNP had with the Scottish Greens at Holyrood for almost three years.

• Holyrood’s sole Alba Party MSP Ash Regan has set out the demands she will make to Mr Yousaf in exchange for her support in the no-confidence vote. The former SNP MSP is in a critical position after the Scottish Greens confirmed they will vote against Mr Yousaf following his decision to end the Bute House Agreement.
• She has written to Mr Yousaf to offer him an “early opportunity” to discuss three clear priorities – Scottish independence, women’s rights and the future of the Grangemouth oil refinery.
• Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “It’s a matter now of when, not if, Humza Yousaf will step down as First Minister.”

• Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross confirmed on Times Radio he will back the Labour motion, saying: “I’ll support that because I want to get rid of the Scottish Government.”
• A tight vote is expected at Holyrood next week, and since the SNP has 63 out of the 128 MSPs, Ms Regan’s vote would appear to be crucial in getting Mr Yousaf over the line.

• SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme on Friday: “Humza Yousaf is a man of profound integrity,” adding that he will “come out fighting”.
• Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Greens, told the PA news agency on Thursday: “We no longer have confidence in a progressive government in Scotland doing the right thing for climate and nature.”

Not in his wildest nightmares could Humza Yousaf have imagined that his future as SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister would depend on Alex Salmond and his team.

When Mr Yousaf took over from Nicola Sturgeon a year ago, Mr Salmond was a diminished force and his breakaway nationalist party did not have a single MSP at Holyrood.

But the SNP leader’s fate as First Minister now appears to depend on the crucial vote of Ash Regan, a former leadership rival who defected to Mr Salmond’s Alba Party in October.

The no-confidence vote he faces at the Scottish Parliament, expected to take place on Wednesday or Thursday next week, has left his team in “panic” mode, Holyrood sources told i.

Read the full story from i‘s Scotland correspondent Adam Forrest here.

“Humza is not just on life support, Humza is about to have his life support unplugged,” says John McTernan, a former adviser to Tony Blair.

He told Talk TV: “The SNP will try to find another candidate for first minister” if Mr Yousaf loses the no confidence vote. “That will cause them problems: there are deep splits between their left and their right.

“The problem is, if you don’t have a majority, you can’t appoint a first minister. If the other parties simply oppose what you’re proposing.

“There are 65 people in total opposed to the SNP when you count in Ash Regan [of the Alba Party] and the two Greens, who Humza has pushed out, there are 63 SNP MSPs. In that situation, if all opposition parties decide they want to push hard, for 28 days all they need to do is vote down whoever the SNP put up.

“In Scotland, unlike in England, if you cannot appoint a first minister, [an] election automatically happens after 28 days.”

He added: “I think most Scottish voters are looking at this show and thinking ‘what a shower’ and it’s time for a change.”

While questions swirl about Humza Yousaf’s future as First Minister of Scotland, he has taken to X, formerly Twitter, to talk about new funding for affordable housing.

He says that he is introducing £80million of funding to bring empty properties back to the standard needed for them to be used as affordable homes.

Alba Party Holyrood leader Ash Regan suggests investment in the Grangemouth refinery could be a price of her support for Humza Yousaf in the upcoming confidence vote.

In a letter to party members, Ms Regan said investment in the refinery – due to shut as early as next year and shift to an import and export terminal – would be a key demand for her support for Mr Yousaf.

Her party have launched a campaign to sustain jobs at the refinery.

“A sign of good faith would be a significant Government investment, reinforcing the campaign to save the Grangemouth refinery from closure,” she said.

“I am requesting the undertaking to produce such an initiative in the early course.

“I am hopeful that the First Minister will commit to such an initiative in the near future as a sign of our shared dedication to Scotland’s welfare.”

Users of social media site X, including an account belonging to a social media personality, are claiming falsely that Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has resigned from his post.

One social media user claimed “Humza Yousaf has resigned,” while another posted “this moron just lost his job as leader of Scotland,” with an accompanying video of Mr Yousaf.

This is false. At the time of writing, Mr Yousaf is still in post and has insisted he will not resign.

Mr Yousaf’s administration was thrown into difficulty on Thursday after he said that he was ending the Bute House Agreement, a power-sharing deal between the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Greens which has been in place for nearly three years.

Mr Yousaf is facing a possible no confidence vote in Holyrood, the Scottish Parliament. However he was still First Minister at the time of writing.

He has also told Sky News early on Friday afternoon that he plans to fight the no-confidence motion and will not resign.

Ash Regan, who defected from the SNP to the Alba Party in October 2023, and who had came third in the leadership contest triggered by Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as SNP leader, tells BBC Scotland News that there is a “big opportunity for a reset” following the end of the Bute House Agreement.

She believes that Humza Yousaf made the right decision in ending the power-sharing arrangement witht he Scottish Greens, and said: “I felt the Greens’ influence was potentially bringing the policy platform of the Scottish government into areas that were not really in alignment with the things that the public wanted to see.

“In some cases I felt, particularly in terms of women’s rights, they were actually harmful.”

Douglas Ross has said he will support a Labour-led motion of no confidence in the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Tory leader told Times Radio: “What we have already seen in reaction to the Labour motion being put by Anas Sarwar is that it is not gaining support from crucially the Greens.

“They [the Greens] have said they will back our motion of no confidence in Humza Yousaf, but they are not saying the same about the motion of no confidence in the entire Scottish Government.

“I’ll support that because I want to get rid of the Scottish Government but ultimately, we are on the brink of removing Humza Yousaf from office. He has been a failure as First Minister and we have an opportunity next week to end his time in office.”

Humza Yousaf says it was “not the intention” to upset the Greens by ending the Bute House Agreement.

He said: “I don’t regret the ending of the Bute House Agreement but I’ve heard they’re upset, I’ve heard their anger. And I can honestly say that was not the intention.”

He went on to say he “really valued the contribution” of Scottish Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater.

“That upset and anger that wasn’t meant from me, and I look forward to hopefully a response from Patrick and Lorna to the letter I intend to write them in the coming days.”

Mr Harvie’s comments claiming the First Minister could no longer command a majority in Holyrood was put to Mr Yousaf. He responded: “Well we’re a minority government, that’s the entire point. You’ve got to work issue by issue, case by case, priority by priority.”

Mr Yousaf went on to say the vote of no confidence he faces next week was “actually really political game playing”.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey says the situation with the SNP and its leader Humza Yousaf, who is facing a no-confidence motion, is a “total mess”.

“It’s a total mess with the SNP and Humza Yousaf. I personally think this SNP government has really failed Scotland,” Sir Ed said during a visit to the River Goyt in Stockport.

Sir Ed said the SNP has let Scotland down on key services such as health and education because the party has been “so focused on their ideological obsession of independence”.

“On these basic things that matter to people, the SNP have been failing them and so Liberal Democrats have been saying in Scotland, look, we need to focus on the NHS, we need to focus on our schools, the cost of living, the environment.”

“Because the SNP haven’t done, I actually think it’s time for a general election in Scotland.”

The Bute House Agreement, officially the Co-operation Agreement between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party Parliamentary Group, was a power-sharing agreement between the SNP and the Greens agreed in 2021.

It meant that some Green MSPs would act as ministers in the Scottish Government, and was accompanied by a shared policy programme.

When she announced the agreement, Nicola Sturgeon said it would lead to an age of “co-operation and consensus building” and ultimately deliver a “greener, fairer independent Scotland”.

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 after the Government dropped a 2030 climate target, and over the decision to pause the prescription of new puberty blockers at Scotland’s only gender clinic for young people.

First Minister Humza Yousaf dramatically brought the power-sharing deal with the Greens to an end on Thursday.

Jackie Baillie, the deputy leader of Scottish Labour, has said that her party has called a vote of confidence in the entire Scottish Government because if Humza Yousaf loses his no confidence motion, the SNP will spend a month finding a new leader, “who again will not be elected by the people of Scotland”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One: “It’s not just the events of the past few months that have made us all raise our eyebrows. People in Scotland have been let down for 17 years.

“We’ve got one in six people on an NHS waiting list, we’ve got economic stagnation, we have a lack of focus on tackling the cost-of-living crisis, and all we’re going to get now is more internal naval gazing and division from the SNP whilst the people of Scotland are crying out for change.

“We’ve had enough”.

Asked how she responds to those who might say Labour is guilty of political opportunism here, she said: “It’s not political opportunism; nobody expected the Bute House Agreement [between the SNP and the Greens] to be torn up in the way it was, and to be frank, I just view it as chaotic and incompetent governance that a very panicky First Minister decides to dump the Greens before the Greens dump the SNP and not one of them has thought this through.”

She said that when she was door-knocking last night she was hearing from SNP voters who are “disappointed” and want “change”.

Humza Yousaf told Sky News: “I intend absolutely to fight that vote of no confidence, I’ve got every intention of winning that vote of no confidence.

“And let me say to the opposition, for minority Government to work in the interest of the people of Scotland also requires the opposition to act in good faith.

“And to the Greens I’ve obviously heard their anger, their upset.

“What I will do is be writing to all the political party leaders, all the party groups represented in the Scottish Parliament including of course Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater [of Greens] asking them to meet with me, to say how do we make minority Government work. It’s in the best interests of the people of Scotland that all of us act in good faith and make it work.”

Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie has said it is “pretty clear” Humza Yousaf is not able to unite the Scottish Parliament following the collapse of the Bute House agreement.

Speaking to the PA news agency, Mr Harvie said it was now up to the SNP to find a suitable leader.

He said: “Very clearly, he doesn’t have the confidence of Parliament, I think that’s going to be clear. We said very clearly the responsibility of the decision is on him. He needs to bear the consequences of that reckless and damaging decision.

“I think it’s pretty clear he’s not the person who is going to be able to bring together a majority of Parliament.”

Asked if there was any way back for Mr Yousaf in terms of working with the Greens, he said the First Minister had “broken trust”, adding: “He still hasn’t really given any clarity on why he made such a dramatic U-turn and [has] broken a promise on which he was elected as First Minister.

“So it’s very difficult to see how you can have a conversation that leads to a constructive outcome on the basis of that lack of trust.”

Humza Yousaf has said he will not resign as Scotland’s First Minister.

Mr Yousaf visited a housing development in Dundee after hurriedly cancelling a speech on independence on Friday.

Speaking to broadcasters, he said he will not stand down and intends to fight the vote of no confidence in him lodged by the Tories.

Asked if he would work with Alba Party Holyrood leader Ash Regan, whose vote could be potentially critical to his survival, the First Minister said he would be writing to all leaders, inviting them to a meeting in an attempt to “make minority Government work”.

As Labour’s shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh dominates the airwaves with talk of nationalising our train services and ending three decades of private failure, shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves was announcing that “Labour will be more pro-business than Tony Blair”.

It is a strange juxtaposition that Labour is today renouncing a privatisation that the New Labour government of Blair and Gordon Brown retained for 13 years, while saying that, actually, we’ll be more “pro-business” than Blair.

Reeves declared that the next Labour government will be “the most pro-business government this country has ever seen”, outflanking Blair’s legacy and that of numerous Conservative governments, too.

But is this just an attempt to woo Tory voters a week before the local and mayoral contests, or do Reeves’ words have substance?

Keep reading here.

It is too early to jump to conclusions about the impact of the Safety of Rwanda Act, Downing Street said, after the Irish government claimed it was causing an influx of migrants into the republic.

A No 10 spokeswoman said: “It is too early to jump to specific conclusions about the impact of the Act and treaty in terms of migrant behaviour.

“Of course we will monitor this very closely and we already work very closely as you would expect with the Irish government, including on matters relating to asylum.

“But of course, the intention behind the Act is to have it serve as a deterrent and that is why we are working to get flights off the ground as swiftly as possible.”

Deputy Irish premier Micheál Martin is reported to have said the policy is already impacting on Ireland.

Labour will back a motion of no confidence against SNP leader Humza Yousaf and has tabled a further motion against the whole Scottish Government, shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said.

“If Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour are successful with that amendment, the Government will fall and there’ll be fresh elections,” Ms Reeves said.

She added: “We now have two broken governments: the SNP in Scotland and the Conservatives in Westminster. It is time for fresh elections in Scotland and across the UK.”

Ms Reeves said: “The SNP are terribly divided and that is having a real impact on the lives and communities across Scotland. We don’t just want another leader of the SNP – we’ve already had two during this Parliament so far.”

Tory MP David Davis has been asked by Times Radio when he thinks the Westminster Government will call the general election, and said it would be “suicidal” to opt for the summer.

“I think the Government would be off its head to do that,” he said, adding that he thinks Rishi Sunak will “go distant, some time in November, maybe even December, to allow economic improvements to come through”.