SNP leader Humza Yousaf has ended his party’s power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens after calling an emergency meeting of his cabinet.
Mr Yousaf said he had decided tear up the Bute House coalition deal which saw the Greens’ co-leaders get ministerial posts in the SNP-led Scottish Government.
Scotland’s First Minister has come under huge pressure from SNP MP and MSPs to halt the deal after a series of controversies over policies pushed by the Greens.
Mr Yousaf denied that he was a “lame duck” leader, telling reporters at a press conference that the agreement had “served its purpose” and had come to a “natural conclusion” after weeks of rising tensions with the Greens.
“It is no longer guaranteeing a stable arrangement in Parliament,” the SNP leader said. Admitting that running a minority government would be “tough”, he added: “I believe it is right that the SNP seek to broaden its sphere of co-operation.”
In a furious response, the Scottish Greens accused “weak” Mr Yousaf of “political cowardice” for ending a deal which he had previously described as being “worth its weight in gold”.
Green co-leader Patrick Harvie told reporters: “The First Minister has decided to capitulate to the most reactionary forces in SNP. We expect to see a raft of progressive policies watered down or ditched altogether.”
Co-leader Lorna Slater also accused Mr Yousaf of “breaking the bonds of trust” and “betraying the electorate” in her own furious response to the decision.
The outspoken SNP MP Joanna Cherry said earlier this week that the alliance had become a “problem” and the Greens were “deeply unpopular” on the doorstep ahead of a general election expected this year.
Senior SNP MSP Christine Grahame said that the difference between the two parties was now “too great” and it was “in the interests of neither party to continue”.
Mr Harvie and his Green co-leader Lorna Slater had also come under internal pressure to end the deal in recent days.
The Greens were angered when the SNP’s Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan said last week the Scottish Government would ditch a key target to cut carbon emissions by 75 per cent by 2030.
The move – along with the decision to pause the use of puberty blockers at Scotland’s only gender identity clinic for children – resulted in Green party members demanding a vote on the future of the power-sharing deal.
Yet the Greens’ support for the use of puberty blockers – and Mr Yousaf’s long delay in responding to Dr Hilary Cass’s review of gender services in England – caused frustration among some inside the SNP.
While Mr Yousaf now faces a harder time getting legislation passed in a minority government, the collapse of the deal may help shore up support for his leadership amid bitter divisions inside his party.
SNP grandee Alex Neil, a former minister in Nicola Sturgeon’s government, said earlier this week that Mr Yousaf had “lost the plot a bit” by allowing the Greens to have too much influence in “dictating policy”.
There has been speculation that allies of MSP Kate Forbes – who only narrowly lost out to Mr Yousaf in last year’s leadership contest – could mount a push against the SNP leader if the party fares badly at the general election.
The SNP has lost ground to Scottish Labour over the past 12 months, with pollsters predicting Mr Yousaf’s party could lose more than 20 seats at Westminster. “It’s just a question now of when he goes, not if,” one SNP source told The Herald at the weekend.
Party sources told i that fundraising efforts and election hopes have been badly damaged by the police investigation into the party’s finances.
The party fears donors will continue to stay away, after chief executive Peter Murrell – Ms Sturgeon’s husband – was charged with embezzlement of SNP funds last week.
The Scottish Conservatives will lodge a motion for a vote of no confidence in Mr Yousaf, the party’s leader Douglas Ross told First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood on Thursday.
Mr Ross said a “coalition of chaos” had now “ended in chaos”. Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy said the collapse of the “toxic coalition” was “an utter humiliation for Humza Yousaf”.
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said Mr Yousaf was “too weak” to hold a coalition government together. “This chaotic and incompetent Government is falling apart before our eyes while Scots pay the price.”
Mr Harvie had said at the weekend that he would quit as co-leader if his party voted to end its power-sharing deal with the SNP at a meeting planned for May.
The Scottish Greens’ co-leader said he shared the “distress” of some in his left-wing party, but argued that leaving the power-sharing deal with the SNP would be a “mistake”.
The Greens had also pushed a deposit return recycling scheme, which has been beset by problems and subject to delays, and also backed a plan to allow people to change their gender more easily, which was blocked by the UK Government.
The Bute House agreement, forged after the 2021 Holyrood election, brought the Greens into a coalition government for the first time anywhere in the UK. It also gave the SNP a working majority in the Scottish Parliament.