Tuesday briefing: How it all went wrong for Humza Yousaf – and where the SNP goes now

Humza Yousaf speaks during a press conference in Bute House, Edinburgh, announcing his resignation. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/Reuters

Good morning. It was the greatest unforced error in British politics since Liz Truss stuck two fingers up at the Treasury – and it has ended in roughly the same way. Humza Yousaf, the Scottish National party leader and first minister at Holyrood, announced that he was stepping down yesterday. The announcement came a few days after he kicked the Green party out of coalition in an attempt to assert his authority and begin a new chapter for the SNP in government. At least he can say he managed the latter.

As Yousaf exits the stage, his bewildered colleagues are asking how he could have handled the politics of the situation so badly – and looking ahead to a deeply uncertain future for the SNP. Today’s newsletter, with historian of modern Scottish politics Rory Scothorne, is about whether this might have gone differently – and what could happen next. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

Israel-Gaza war | The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has urged Hamas to accept an “extraordinarily generous” ceasefire proposal from Israel in talks viewed as the last chance to prevent a ground operation in Rafah. Israel is reportedly willing to accept the release of just 33 hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails and a second phase of a truce including a “period of sustained calm”.

Spain | Pedro Sánchez has decided to continue as Spain’s prime minister after reflecting on what he described as a “harassment and bullying operation” being waged against him and his wife. Sánchez had been considering his position after a court opened a preliminary corruption investigation into his wife, Begoña Gómez, over allegations from a pressure group with far-right links.

Immigration and asylum | Rishi Sunak has said the UK will not accept the return of asylum seekers from Ireland and dismissed the prospect of a deal with Dublin. His comments may raise tensions with the Irish government, which says the threat of deportation to Rwanda is linked to a surge in asylum seekers arriving via the land border with Northern Ireland.

Germany | Nine people have gone on trial in Stuttgart over an alleged far-right plot to overthrow the state led by a pseudo-aristocrat businessman. The men are charged with high treason, attempted murder, and membership of a terrorist organisation in relation to the alleged coup, which was foiled in nationwide raids in 2022.

London | The two military horses injured after colliding with vehicles in London are making progress after surgery, the British army has said. Quaker, a Cavalry black, and a grey horse called Vida bolted from a military exercise after being frightened by builders moving rubble.

In depth: ‘He gained nothing, and lost everything’

In a press conference yesterday, Humza Yousaf more or less admitted how poorly he had judged the decision to end the Bute House agreement, as the coalition between the SNP and the Greens was known, last week. (For more on how it fell apart, see Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks’s explainer from last week.)

“My hope was to continue working with the Greens,” he said – but added: “I clearly underestimated the level of hurt and upset my actions caused Green colleagues.”

In other words, Yousaf had calculated that the Greens would continue to support him as first minister even out of coalition – necessary to keeping the government going as the SNP is in a minority at Holyrood, with 63 of 129 MSPs. Once it became clear that they would never support him again, he saw no palatable route to winning a vote of no confidence due later this week.

Referring to the alternative of courting Ash Regan, who defected from the SNP to Alex Salmond’s Alba last year, he said he was “not willing to trade my values or principles”; Salmond claimed Yousaf was negotiating with Alba only yesterday morning, while the SNP claimed the conversation with Regan was merely a “courtesy” call.

“Diamonds are formed under pressure,” Rory Scothorne writes in an opinion piece for the Guardian this morning. “Well, so are career-ending mistakes”. “It was a catastrophic misjudgement,” he said yesterday. “He gained nothing, and lost everything.”

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How did Yousaf find himself in this position?

The Greens were already angry at not being consulted over a major decision to freeze council tax last year; the controversy over the gender recognition act and how it was blocked by Westminster has also been a lightning rod for disagreement. But the proximate cause of the crisis was Yousaf’s decision earlier this month to abandon the target of cutting Scottish carbon emissions by 75% by 2030.

That led the Greens (who are more democratic than most parties, and whose leadership were taking an “absolute pelting” from members, Scothorne said) to call an extraordinary general meeting to decide whether they could remain in government.

Rather than wait to hear back from the Greens about their view, Yousaf decided that he had to seize the initiative – and ambushed his coalition partners. “You can understand that waiting on the Greens would not have looked strong,” Scothorne said. “But it might have been done in a significantly less toxic way.”

Once Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater had been informed, there was little prospect of them helping to keep Yousaf in post: this piece in the Herald gives a flavour of the intensity of feeling among their membership at not even being able to leave a deal that some feel led to “the corruption of Green values” on their own terms.

“The clear strategic choice for them was to go on the attack,” Scothorne said. “And while they may appear to be angry and emotional, it’s probably the smartest electoral thing, too. They’re saying: if you’re an SNP member and you’re angry about the direction of your party, we’re right here.”

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What are the deeper roots of the crisis?

Yousaf and the SNP’s problems were not merely a matter of policy disagreements with the Greens and a botched exit strategy. The Bute House agreement was struck during the Nicola Sturgeon era, and “in the end, the trust came from a sense of her confidence”, Scothorne said. “As Yousaf’s position weakened, it became harder for the Greens to trust that he would stick with them.”

In this analysis piece, Libby Brooks notes that the eventual end of the SNP’s partnership with the Greens might be traced back to the leadership contest last year, when Yousaf narrowly defeated the social conservative Kate Forbes. “The downward spiral of chaos that ended with Yousaf’s resignation little over a year later was telegraphed by the fault lines that emerged back then,” she writes.

Some on the right of the party were unhappy with the deal – and since Yousaf had none of the authority that Sturgeon built up over nearly a decade, those fissures were bound to become visible, making the projection of the SNP as a broad church harder to sustain.

“You might see Yousaf as the failure of continuity Sturgeon without Sturgeon herself,” Scothorne said. “It was bold to say, as they did, that we speak for the whole country in minority government – but a big part of the calculation was that she was popular enough to outweigh the risks. She, personally, was able to keep the mirage alive. Yousaf was kind of stuffed from the start.”

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Where does the SNP go from here?

Once Yousaf resigns, parliament has 28 days to nominate a replacement – and if it fails to do so, an election will be called. So the SNP needs a leader who can pick up the support of the Greens or be sure they will abstain.

You can read here Severin Carrell’s guide to the runners and riders. Kate Forbes (above) has been seen by some as a strong candidate partly because she is already a known quantity from that contest. “Anyone on the right would say it’s her time,” said Scothorne. “She’s the best known, she has the support of a decent chunk of the Scottish establishment, and the media like her.”

But the fact that Forbes would need the support of the Greens and disagrees with them on large swathes of social policy is a major problem. Instead, the frontrunner appears to be deputy leader John Swinney – and some bookmakers stopped taking bets on him yesterday. Swinney led the party from 2000 to 2004 but ruled himself out of last year’s contest, partly for family reasons.

“If he can be persuaded, he is the obvious safe pair of hands,” Scothorne said. “But there’s no one with Sturgeon’s charisma or anywhere near.”

The SNP’s problems, he added, are much deeper than the identity of the leader. “I would say they are a bit stuck,” he said. “They built their momentum on a mixture of independence and competence – but that has become harder to maintain as everything has fallen apart.

“Much of that is not their fault – it’s because of profound changes driven from Westminster. They have had to fall back on independence, but as it’s become clear that Labour would also block a referendum, it has worn thin.

“Renewal will be very difficult. I suspect that this ends with them out of office, and that they will just start talking about independence again – and that approach will keep them out for a while.”

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How will Humza Yousaf be remembered?

It was striking, in Yousaf’s emotional speech yesterday, that he spoke much more about what it meant to be the first leader of Scotland from an ethnic minority and the general ability of politicians to do good than any concrete achievements.

“The one thing that really stood out is that he was a leading British politician who spoke up for people in Gaza,” Scothorne said. “But the truth is there’s not an obvious flagship policy to his name, and he’s presided over a collapse in support.” While he is partly a victim of circumstances, and growing support for Labour because of a deep desire to kick the Tories out in Westminster, he has never proven able to break that pattern and make the weather himself.

“I suspect history will not be very generous to him, because of just how incompetently his time in office is ending,” Scothorne said. “Historians don’t tend to forgive this kind of self-sabotage.”

What else we’ve been reading

The draconian tactics by universities and the police to quash US student protests (above) for a ceasefire in Gaza have only made them more popular. Sociologist Joan Donovan writes: “There is some truth to the popular protest slogan: ‘They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.’” Nimo

Stuart Potts, a former crack addict with a lengthy criminal record, is an unlikely do-gooder – but since 2020, he has offered hundreds of homeless people a bed in his small Manchester flat, with life-changing results. Samira Shackle’s long read has a lot to say about homelessness; it’s also a remarkable, intimate portrait of a complicated and quietly heroic man. Archie

After 10 years in government, Narendra Modi has a disappointing record for ordinary Indians, argues Salil Tripathi – and so he is doubling down on blatant Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim rhetoric. “This is not dog-whistle politics,” Tripathi writes. “Its meaning is audible to all Indians.” Archie

Dating is often described as a numbers game – but that does not necessarily mean more people increases your chances of finding a partner. Elle Hunt describes how leaving London for a smaller town has actually improved the quality of her dating life. Nimo

The Guardian series How we made always studs its cultural history with pleasing nuggets of trivia, and this week’s, about Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, has several. My favourites relate to pig squeals, some disgusting gel sourced from an art store, and Donald Sutherland’s perm. Archie

Sport

Premier League | A majority of Premier League clubs have voted to explore measures that would put a cap on player spending, with only Manchester United, Manchester City and Aston Villa voting against. “Anchoring” would limit spending on wages, transfer fees and agent fees to a multiple of the TV revenue generated by the league’s bottom club.

Tennis | Last summer, Ons Jabeur (above) tore through the Wimbledon draw to reach her second final in a row – and then froze, losing in straight sets to the unseeded Marketa Vondrousova. She tells Tumaini Carayol that the defeat “was connected to me being a mother and having a family” – and that she had envisioned taking time away from the sport to have her first child if she had won. “I think it was meant to be,” she says. “Maybe I’m not ready to be a mum yet.”

Champions League | Ahead of their meeting as Bayern Munich and Real Madrid contest tonight’s semi-final, Jonathan Liew reflects on the careers of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham – two great players whose vastly different trajectories hold lessons about the important of seizing the moment. “Kane has navigated his career like a man who always has another season,” he writes. “Bellingham has navigated his like a man playing his last.”

The front pages

Several papers lead on the resignation of Humza Yousaf this morning. “Yousaf quits as first minister after coalition gamble triggers SNP crisis” says the Guardian, while the Times has “SNP lurches into another crisis as its leader quits”. “You’ve only got Yousaf to blame” – oh dear, Metro. “Yousaf triggers turmoil with exit as Scots first minister” – that’s the Financial Times.

The Daily Telegraph leads with “Sex is a biological fact, NHS declares”, while the Daily Express reports “Hunt: tax cuts are priority”. The i goes with “PIP disability benefit could be cut using new system with six ‘tiers’”. “Pure evil” – the Daily Mirror covers the conviction of “career criminal” Lee Byer, 46, for manslaughter over the “motiveless” killing of Thomas O’Halloran, 87, who had been sitting on his mobility scooter, busking on his accordion.

Today in Focus

Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf resigns

On Monday, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf announced his resignation. What does this mean for the Scottish National party? Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks report

Cartoon of the day | Achaz von Hardenberg

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

First Nations activist Murrawah Johnson is one of seven global winners of the prestigious Goldman prize for environmental activism, which has been described as the Nobel for the environment movement, for her role in a landmark legal case to block a major coalmine in Queensland, Australia. The case was also the first to test the state’s new Human Rights Act, successfully arguing that the emissions from burning the coal would limit the rights of First Nations people.

Johnson has been fighting for the rights of her land and her people against the climate crisis and those driving it for a decade. The stakes for her are existential and the battle has been exhausting, “but I have to remind myself that sometimes the work needs to be done … because it’s just the right thing to do”.

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday, and here for our climate newsletter Down to Earth

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