Scotland’s pro-independence first minister Humza Yousaf resigns after one year, rather than face no-confidence vote
- Yousaf quit as head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party after a week of chaos triggered by his scrapping of a coalition deal with Scotland’s Greens
- If the party is unable to find a new leader to command support in parliament, a Scottish election will be held
Scotland’s leader Humza Yousaf resigned on Monday, further opening the door to the UK opposition Labour Party regaining ground in its former Scottish heartlands in a national election expected to be held later this year.
Yousaf is quitting as head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party and first minister of Scotland’s devolved government after a week of chaos triggered by his scrapping of a coalition agreement with the Green Party.
He then failed to secure enough support to survive a no-confidence vote, expected later this week.
“I’ve concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm,” Yousaf said, resigning a little over a year since he replaced Nicola Sturgeon as first minister and SNP leader.
He said he would continue until a successor is chosen in an SNP leadership contest.
The party is losing popular support after 17 years of heading the Scottish government, following a funding scandal and the resignation of Sturgeon as leader last year.
This month, polling firm YouGov said Labour overtook the SNP in voting intentions for a Westminster election for the first time in a decade, raising the prospect of a reversal of the tide that swept most of Scotland’s seats in the UK parliament to the SNP in recent elections.
