UKAnalysis

Humza Yousaf tried to appear strong, but ended up looking weak

Scotland’s outgoing first minister, who announced on Monday he would quit, lacked political guile, his rivals say

Humza Yousaf has resigned as first minister of Scotland and leader of the SNP, but will remain in place until a successor has been elected. Video: Reuters
Mark Paul's picture
Mark Paul London Correspondent
Mon Apr 29 2024 - 20:34

In his mind, it was never supposed to end this way for Humza Yousaf, who lasted barely a year as first minister of Scotland before he quit on Monday amid the fallout from the collapse of his governing coalition with the Scottish Greens. Yet in the minds of some of his rivals, it was never likely to have ended much differently.

Yousaf made it to office last spring after squeaking a win in a bruising Scottish National Party (SNP) leadership contest during which his internal party rivals made clear their disdain for his political skills. As he tearfully faced the electorate from his official residence on Monday, from where he may also have been able to survey the ruins of his political career, it became just that little bit harder to disagree with them that Yousaf, charming as he was, lacked something.

“What he really lacked was strength,” said one rather less-than-magnanimous rival of his on Monday morning, as political observers in Scotland wondered just how on earth the erstwhile first minister had allowed it all to happen.

What he also lacked was foresight.

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Yousaf’s biggest mistake was that he woefully underestimated the anger of the Scottish Greens when, less than a week previously, he ditched its government partnership agreement with the SNP. Only 48 hours earlier, he had lauded the agreement with the Greens as being “worth its weight in gold,” despite protestations from within his own party that it had dragged his government too far to the political left.

[ News: Humza Yousaf to resign as Scotland's first minister ]

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he sacked the two Green ministers last week and promised that the SNP would go it alone from then on as a minority government. He tried to appear strong, but ended up looking weak instead.

His miscalculation, his critics said, was that he hadn’t banked on how set the Greens would be on retribution for what they called his political “cowardice”. From the moment the Greens said they would support a vote of no confidence against him, a newly-minted minority leader, his fate appeared sealed.

Many nationalist critics of Yousaf believe he was correct to ditch the Greens, but said he could have done it less brutally, and perhaps also only after first securing alternative support from elsewhere, such as Alex Salmond’s Alba Party.

But Yousaf went ahead and pulled the trigger on the break-up of the SNP’s Green deal anyway. In the end, it was he who took the bullet. Now the SNP may look to swing quickly behind a unity candidate to help heal the party’s wounds.