Political editor Alistair Grant outside Bute House after Humza Yousaf resigns as First Minister of Scotland
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00:02 - Hello, you've joined the Scotsman's Politics Show.
00:12 My name's Dale Miller, I'm Head of News at the Scotsman.
00:15 And I'm joined by our political editor, Alistair Grant,
00:18 standing outside Butte House.
00:20 Alistair, it's official, Hamza Yousaf has resigned.
00:24 You were in the room.
00:24 Just talk to us about how it all went down.
00:28 - Yeah, so this is a resignation that I think we saw coming
00:31 over the last couple of days.
00:32 His path through this disastrous situation
00:35 he got himself into was looking increasingly narrow.
00:38 And today he effectively stood up and admitted
00:41 that he had made a miscalculation
00:43 when he ended the Butte House agreement
00:44 with the Greens on Thursday last week.
00:47 I think he did not expect, and the fact he said himself,
00:50 he did not expect the reaction from the Scottish Greens.
00:53 He didn't expect them to be quite as angry as they were
00:55 at him ending that agreement.
00:56 And I think he hoped for a kind of continuation
00:59 of some kind of arrangement with the Greens
01:01 on a more informal basis.
01:02 It would have allowed him to continue
01:04 as a minority government, to allow the SNP
01:07 to continue as a minority government.
01:08 Of course, the Greens' anger and the scale of their anger
01:11 just meant that just wasn't possible.
01:13 And Hamza Yousaf saying today that he was not prepared
01:16 to do a deal or reach any kind of arrangement
01:19 with Alex Salmond's Alaba party.
01:21 I think over the weekend when we saw that those talks
01:24 could potentially be taking place,
01:26 we saw some of the backlash from within the SNP to that.
01:29 Figures like the longstanding SNP MP, Pete Wishart,
01:33 who made clear on social media that he thought
01:36 any kind of deal with Alex Salmond would be unacceptable.
01:39 So huge controversy within the SNP
01:42 if they'd gone down that route.
01:43 And I think it just turned out the writing was on the wall.
01:45 I think this will go down in Holyrood history
01:48 as an extraordinary miscalculation on Hamza Yousaf's part.
01:52 He took a gamble when he ended the Butte House agreement.
01:55 I think he thought that the Greens would be angry,
01:57 but that they wouldn't back a vote of no confidence in him.
02:01 Turned out that he completely misjudged that situation.
02:04 And now today, I think he was left with no option really,
02:06 but to resign.
02:07 And I thought it was notable as well
02:08 that when he was thanking his family at the end,
02:11 his wife was in the room, was in the room in Butte House,
02:15 he got quite emotional, actually.
02:16 You could see he was kind of visibly emotional.
02:19 And then he exited the room
02:21 without taking any questions from the media.
02:23 Quite similar to what Nicola Sturgeon did actually
02:25 when she resigned in last year.
02:28 So it's an extraordinary day in Scottish politics.
02:31 One we probably saw coming,
02:32 but events have just moved so fast
02:34 over the last couple of days.
02:35 And as I say that, any path through for Hamza Yousaf
02:38 was just looking increasingly impossible.
02:40 - Alistair, one thing that jumped out at me
02:43 from the statement is that he'll stay in post
02:46 until the successor is elected.
02:49 Two questions for you.
02:50 A, will that go down well with the rival parties
02:53 that he's gonna stay around for potentially
02:55 a number of weeks before a leadership contest
02:58 within the SMP takes place?
03:00 And B, who might be front runners
03:03 amongst the people who could come in?
03:05 - Yeah, so we're almost back to the future here.
03:07 This is the exact same situation we had last year
03:09 when Nicola Sturgeon resigned.
03:10 She announced that she would resign as first minister,
03:13 but that she would stay on
03:14 while the SMP had a leadership election,
03:16 which effectively is exactly what Hamza Yousaf
03:18 has just done.
03:19 And that avoids, if he'd stood up today
03:21 and said he was resigning with immediate effect,
03:23 it then would have started the clock ticking
03:25 on that 28 day period for a new first minister to be found.
03:29 And if that wasn't possible,
03:31 there would then have been a kind of
03:33 an early Holyrood election.
03:34 But because he's staying on as first minister
03:36 until a new SMP leader is found, that won't happen.
03:40 I think, obviously the Scottish Conservatives,
03:43 Scottish Labour will not be happy with that.
03:45 They'll be calling for an early election.
03:47 In fact, I think Anna Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader,
03:49 is already doing that.
03:50 I expect Douglas Ross will be saying
03:52 it's an unacceptable situation as well.
03:54 The SMP have in the past criticised, for example,
03:57 the Conservative Party when they had
03:58 their internal leadership election
04:00 and Rishi Sunak became prime minister.
04:02 I think they called that an affront to democracy
04:04 at the time.
04:05 So there's an easy element of hypocrisy to this,
04:07 but I think it will be acceptable to the Greens,
04:10 I would imagine.
04:11 They will be speaking in Holyrood later on today,
04:14 I think I'm right in saying.
04:15 I imagine their beef, for want of a better way to put it,
04:20 was with Humza Yousaf as an individual.
04:22 They weren't probably going to take down
04:24 the Scottish government as a whole.
04:26 In fact, Patrick Harvey had said over the weekend
04:28 that if the SMP could come forward with a new leader
04:31 that the Greens would support,
04:32 then maybe they can come up with some kind of arrangement there
04:35 on a more informal basis.
04:36 So I think the Greens will be happy
04:38 that Humza Yousaf has stood down
04:39 and they'll be waiting to see who emerges
04:42 as the new SMP leader.
04:44 In terms of who that might be,
04:46 I think there's a lot of chat about John Swinney,
04:48 the former deputy first minister,
04:50 coming in potentially in a kind of caretaker basis,
04:52 on an interim basis, while the party sorts itself out.
04:55 He's obviously seen as a competent figure,
04:58 he's often referred to as a pair of safe hands.
05:00 He would certainly be acceptable to the Greens.
05:02 He's had in the past quite a close relationship
05:05 with the influential Green MSP, Ross Greer.
05:08 So that could be one option.
05:09 I think other people that get mentioned,
05:11 Neil Gray, the current health secretary,
05:14 might be seen as a bit of a continuity candidate.
05:16 He's obviously very close to Humza Yousaf.
05:18 Jenny Gilruth, the education secretary,
05:20 is another one that people are talking about.
05:22 People also talk about Kate Forbes,
05:25 the former SMP leadership contender.
05:27 I think the problem there was that
05:29 she would definitely not get the support of the Greens.
05:31 I think it's safe to say.
05:33 They would not be supporting her bid
05:35 to become first minister.
05:37 So she kind of find herself in the difficult situation
05:39 that Humza Yousaf was looking at at the weekend,
05:41 where she'd be having to rely on potentially
05:43 the Alaba party vote.
05:45 (audio cuts out)
05:48 - SMP parliamentarians.
06:03 Kate Forbes, obviously known for her socially conservative
06:06 religious views, known as a bit more to the right
06:08 of the SMP as a party when it comes to issues
06:10 such as taxation.
06:12 She's made it clear that she doesn't like
06:13 the kind of route of high tax that Humza Yousaf
06:16 has gone down when it comes to income tax, for example.
06:19 So yeah, I think it's all to play for here.
06:22 I think we should probably expect a few different names
06:24 to pull themselves in the ring,
06:25 but John Swinney looking like an early favourite.
06:27 I think actually Keith Brown, the deputy leader of the SMP,
06:30 has already come out on social media
06:31 and said that he thinks John Swinney should take over.
06:34 So I would expect events to move quite fast.
06:37 - Alistair, very quick question to finish.
06:41 Will the no confidence motions still go ahead this week,
06:43 particularly the one in Humza Yousaf's name?
06:47 - Well, I think that's probably will.
06:48 I mean, it's up to the Conservative party there,
06:50 but I imagine they'll probably push forward
06:53 with no confidence motions.
06:55 I think the probably one to watch is the no confidence
06:56 motion in the Scottish government that Anna Sarwar,
07:00 the Scottish Labour leader, had been putting forward.
07:02 But again, we just expect the Greens to abstain in that,
07:06 perhaps they're not going to back it.
07:09 Even when it was being talked about last week,
07:10 it seemed unlikely the Greens would back it
07:12 if Humza Yousaf resigned.
07:14 So probably the story now, the direction it's going in,
07:18 is what's going to happen next in terms of who the SMP
07:21 will put forward as a potential leader
07:23 and what that means for the future of the party,
07:25 what that means for the relationship
07:26 with the Greens going forward.
07:28 - For the full analysis, full out news coverage
07:33 and opinion from Humza Yousaf's resignation today,
07:37 please visit our website.
07:39 You'll find our homepage, popular stories
07:42 about what has happened today
07:44 and what may happen in coming days.
07:46 And please, for the full wrap of our coverage,
07:49 go out and buy a copy of The Scotsman tomorrow.
07:51 Alistair, thanks for joining us.
07:52 Thanks everyone for tuning in.
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