On Thursday, Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, made the unexpected decision to tear up the Bute House agreement. The deal was reached in August 2021, between the former Scottish National party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Green party co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, to encourage cooperation between the two parties.
“In one of the most unexpected twists to this entire saga, and a twist that I don’t believe that Humza would ever have envisaged was realistic, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater made clear that they were prepared to do what was previously unthinkable,” the Guardian’s Scotland editor, Severin Carrell, tells Michael Safi. “And that was back a Scottish Conservative motion of no confidence against Humza Yousaf.”
Within days of Yousaf’s decision to cut ties with the Greens, he found himself in a political crisis. On Monday he announced his resignation.
The Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, Libby Brooks, explains what his decision to step down means for the future of the SNP, its general election prospects and the independence movement.
Photograph: Andrew Milligan/Reuters
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