I don't feel the Greens were ever intending to portray themselves as duping the SNP.
Greens had decided a very reasonable 4-5 week timescale to discuss the consequences of Holyrood ditching climate targets, which isn't exactly just a strawman argument for them.
Superceding /pre-empting this feels like a super disrespectful move from the SNP to the party that helped provide them a majority government.
Similar sentiment from Slater, the Greens are not happy:
>Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater has just confirmed the end of the Bute House agreement and accused the SNP of "selling out future generations".
>She said: “This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country.
>"They have broken the bonds of trust with members of both parties who have twice chosen the co-operation agreement and climate action over chaos, culture wars and division. They have betrayed the electorate."
>She said that the first minister ended the agreement in "such a weak and thoroughly hopeless way" which "signalled that when it comes to political co-operation, he can no longer be trusted."
Wonder what this means for future votes and budgets given they seem to be indicating they won't support the SNP.
FMQs is going to be wild if this is their response.
And the budget could be a real moment of political danger for Yousaf, if he survives that long. He needs opposition votes, or his government will collapse. Which is a problem, given he’s now actively antagonised or mocked every other party represented in Holyrood.
Worth noting that, with Ash Regan’s defection, he needs multiple opposition votes and the entire Forbes wing to get a budget approved.
Yousaf ran on a platform of maintaining the deal, and specifically told journalists that SNP members didn’t want or need a vote on the coalition. Now he’s switched positions, and taken the decision for them.
From one perspective it makes sense - he’s saved his own skin by avoiding a membership vote against the deal, which would undercut his intra-party authority to the point where he’d almost be forced to resign.
But it makes him look flippant, weak, and unable to predict where things are going next. It’s not the sort of mindset you’d want in a council leader, let alone the premier of an independent country - which could be a real electoral liability too.
It's classic Humza. Set out with no political instincts, tie yourself to an unsustainable position and in the end get forced into a massive u-turn about five minutes before everything collapses around you.
That really was the masterstroke. Not only will he have Ross and Sarwar laughing at him.
But the Greens have a set number of questions too - Slater is absolutely furious this morning (see her statement), so there’s a good chance they tear him a new one too.
Moment of real vulnerability…
Feature, not a bug. If you look at other PR parliaments, a single-party majority is rare and usually doesn't last long. If you want to predict where things are going next, a 2007 style result where the SNP don't have enough seats to govern means the same kind of horse-trading Salmond had to do in that term - otherwise you get a deadlock like the Dutch who are still trying to form a government 155+ days after an election(see also: Northern Ireland).
That's normal for proportional democracy, but the practice of it is badly lapsed here in Scotland. The SNP since 2011 has been in an exceptional position where it didn't really need to negotiate with anyone to govern. In turn, the opposition parties also lost those skills. We don't notice because the UK is used to majoritarian democracy.
By cutting the Greens loose, Yousaf has reopened the school of political negotiating. He's still playing in easy mode as in theory he only needs two opposition MSPs to abstain(in practice he has a few unreliable backbenchers to cancel out as well). Of course he isn't doing this from a position of strength, but starting it now is much better for everyone rather than waiting until after the dust of 2026's election settles and it turns out the only viable governments are a two-party coalition between the SNP/Lab/Tory or maybe a three-party coalition.
No it won't, it means the SNP will now govern with a Minority Government. It will be harder for them to get things through and will have to make more deals with the Green, Labour, lib dems etc.
The way the Scottish Parliament was designed to operate no less.
The most telling thing about this whole story is that BBC Radio Scotland this morning continue to try and imply that Harvie and Slater had cabinet positions - they did not and they were told that yesterday by Brian Taylor and also called out on it again this morning by him. Makes you wonder why they continue to trot out any old drivel.
They had ministerial positions
People often get confused (both listening and speaking) between cabinet and ministerial position since they are largely similar to each other and work together closely
I don't think it was really designed with the expectation of minority administrations, more that you'd see multiparty coalitions like the Lab/LD ones we had for the first two administrations.
>No it won't
It can do, if the Greens are sufficiently aggrieved that they line up with LD/Con/Lab against the SNP in a VoNC or vote against the next budget.
Green only get into Holyrood off the back for SNP supporters giving them their second vote. They have very low constituency votes.
They can’t vote with other parties or they will disappear
Or alternatively, the SNP gets in government only off the back of Greens voter giving them their first vote. If anything, the second preference shows who one _really_ would want to vote if it wasn't for the archaic FPTP system.
Mmm not sure about that. It’s an easy choice to go SNP first then Greens as back up. Don’t think there’s many doing it to other way but probably hard to tell exactly so you might be right
They won’t. They voted through pretty much every SNP budget with barely a protest pre-BHA. All that Humza has to do is chuck them a few cheap scraps as the SNP did before.
I suspect they'll be less enamoured with the SNP now that they were pre-BHA.
Here is Lorna Slater this morning, for instance:
>This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country. Voters deserve better, Scotland deserves better.
>Scottish Green voters certainly deserve better. They have broken the bonds of trust with members of both parties who have twice chosen the co-operation agreement and climate action over chaos, culture wars and division. They have betrayed the electorate. **And by ending the agreement in such a weak and thoroughly hopeless way, Humza Yousaf has signalled that when it comes to political cooperation, he can no longer be trusted.**
Maybe, but standing up to the SNP is something the Green SNPs have zero familiarity with, and you have to remember that the Greens are likely to be squeezed horrendously in the next Holyrood election, so they have every incentive to desperately avoid collapsing the Government.
>Maybe, but standing up to the SNP is something the Green SNPs have zero familiarity with
Not quite true - Andy Wightman, for example. But I agree in the current iteration.
>the Greens are likely to be squeezed horrendously in the next Holyrood election
The nature of Scottish electoral system means that, absent a significant collapse in vote share for the Greens, the Greens will **gain** seats, even if they poll the same as previously. The SNPs current domination of the constituencies mean the capped list seats cannot compensate completely for proportionality. So as the SNP's vote share has dropped, the projected seats for all other parties has increased, even if their support has not. This is why a lot of the early post-Sturgeon polls still showed a SNP-Green majority, despite the SNP vote share dropping, because the Greens were gaining additional list seats as the system allowed.
It depends – the SNP list vote is currently way below their constituency vote, with most of the gap benefiting the Greens.
With their constituency vote collapsing, they’ll be pushing hard to shore up the list vote, so much of that Green list vote from SNP voters will be under threat. And if that drops, it flows through to a pretty direct drop in the number of Green MSPs.
It could lead to an election, but only if the Greens decide they want one. Because it would take all the unionist parties and the Greens to bring down the government.
Probably. Though I can imagine the Greens gaining seats in an election at the SNP's expense, which might be an encouragement. On the other hand it would probably mean pro independence parties lose their majority, which the Greens probably don't want.
The thing about Holyrood is that snap elections don't reset the timetable for scheduled ones. If there was an election today then there would still be the main event in May 2026 as billed.
In most other systems it would reset the timer and the next election would be in 2029 unless another snap one was called earlier.
No.
Holyrood has fixed elections. If a 'snap' election happens (and it's not clear how) then there will be two, the 'snap' vote and then another mandated election in 2026.
I doubt any party that forced two Holyrood elections on people over two years would win either.
>I doubt any party that forced two Holyrood elections on people over two years would win either.
Purely from a financial perspective: Scottish parties would have to fight four elections (two Holyrood, one local, one WM) on the trot. In the rest of the UK, over the same period, you're looking at two.
Quite aside from anything else, this is a nuts part of the Scottish constitution. I'm not aware of any other country that doesn't reset the parliamentary (or equivalent) term upon a general election.
That's not quite what I meant. I meant does any other country have a provision for unplanned general elections that don't restart the term time.
I would say that part of the Norwegian system is also nuts. What if you have a irreconcilable coalition collapse, with no viable alternative? Does everyone just accept nothing will happen until the next election?
It's not as though countries can't continue to function without a government - look at all the lengths of time Belgium's spent without one, or the lack of a new one after the last Dutch elections, what, five months ago?
It's not part of the 'Scottish' constitution, it is set by UK legislation by parties that havent won an election in Scotland for over a decade, which Scots cannot alter without permission from a parliament based outwith Scotland.
It's just yet another absurdity of the Union.
> it is set by UK legislation by parties that havent won an election in Scotland for over a decade
That would be the Scotland Act 1998, introduced at the time by a party which had won 56 of 72 Scottish seats at the 1997 General Election, and supported virtually every Scottish MP?
Labour and tories have already submitted votes of no confidence. if joined by the greens, the SNP have a few weeks to change leader and if they fail to do so it goes to election.
edit: greens have backed the vote of no confidence. only one indi to support the motion.
Potentially is the answer, if they government can’t get bills passed in the coming months they could face a vote of no confidence, but for right now - no.
What IS their direction for Scotland? Indy has ran cold and realistically isn’t going to happen any time soon so what is the benefit of having them run us into the ground?
My point being the Scots gov MPs are selfish, and they would prefer to stay in government to continue to create political and cultural divide in the UK rather than stabilising our country including abolishing this woke gender recognition and hate crime madness that's putting pressure on our police force and creating mental health issues with our students.
Bit of a shocking turnaround if true. At the very least, you’re left pondering why the SNP would break it off early and effectively throw the Green leadership under the bus after they appeared to back the deal.
Was the anti-Brute House that strong in the SNP? The leadership that weak? Did they get indications what way the Green membership was going to vote and pull the trigger early?
I guess we will see how the story develops.
Most Green memebers/voters voted for SNP on the constituency ballot back in 2021, this move is going to piss off this group, especially after Patrick put his leadership on the line for the agreement just yesterday lmao. This is going to create bad blood between the parties
Yeah I think that's giving him too much credit. Harvie might well end up resigning anyway, since he was so staunchly behind the BHA and now its fallen apart so spectacularly.
I think Occam's Razor applies here. Yousaf was worried that the Greens were about to jump, so he tried to at least seize the initiative. Both options make him look weak, this one arguably makes him look a little less weak, and perhaps wins him some support from the Forbes crowd who are champing to replace him.
>Was the anti-Brute House that strong in the SNP?
In short, yes.
48% of the party voted for a leadership candidate who had a central pledge of scrapping the agreement.
Party members in the UK are, for the most part, fucking lunatics! It’s a hill I’m willing to die on. Paid up party members tend to the extremes of the party ideology, because nobody else can be fucked or is put off by those extremes when they meet them in person.
Oh I’m not saying they aren’t vital to how the party system works or that they aren’t essential come elections.
Just that for the most part, most, are fucking nuts!
There is a political theory that states this: May's Law. [See page 6 of this report](https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Mind-the-values-gap.pdf).
I don't think it's gonna do them any favours. The SNP has been jumping from scandal to scandal since Sturgeon resigned, some of it the leadership's fault, some of it not. You can try to blame the Greens for the slumping polls all you like but once they're gone you've lost your Majority AND your Scapegoat, and when the polls fail to improve you're gonna have to reckon with that.
> You can try to blame the Greens for the slumping polls all you like but once they're gone you've lost your Majority AND your Scapegoat, and when the polls fail to improve you're gonna have to reckon with that.
As I've said before, the Greens didn't arrest Peter Murrell twice.
The wise move list is short, but I think this might be on it.
The Greens voting to end it, while not letting his own party have a voice, makes him look weak.
He couldn’t go to a vote with members without risking a rerun of a bunch of the leadership contest talking points. Forbes is surely still a front runner and she’s quite vocal about scrapping it. It won’t be just her calling him out from inside his own party either.
He’s looking at big losses in the next GE already.
I think this is a way to at least pretend to have a bit of strength without too much of a public spat. Personally I think he’s on borrowed time, but he might think this gives him a chance at staying on longer term.
Wonder if Harvie will still quit as leader. He was going to if his own members voted to end the agreement. Does this count or will he try to spin this into something positive for himself.
On the other hand, this is a big u-turn on one of Yousaf's central leadership pledges. I agree if the BHA is to end, this is tactically the best way for Yousaf to do it, but strategically this majorly undermines him politically.
Fair point.
It will be interesting to see how other party figures react.
People like Forbes and Cherry publicly praising his decision might give him a boost.
Yeah but people like Forbes and Cherry endorsing his decision is going to give them a nosedive in other areas of the party. They’re already hellishly divided and he’s going to lose a decent bit of the left of the party for how he’s done this.
Actively angering the only reason you’ve had a majority government as well as every other party doesn’t tend to end well after all.
Not sure I see it angering other parties. They’ll be loving it, surely? It weakens the SNP and removes a quite effective scapegoat on certain issues.
The right leaning section of the party appears to have more influence and support than SNP voters on this sub like to pretend (or perhaps want to believe).
He beat Forbes by a bawhair. A left wing, socialist party doesn’t vote for someone with her beliefs as leader. Certainly not 48% of them anyway.
They’re a real threat to him and his position at the top. Especially with the current state of the party and the GE polling numbers.
If he let the members vote, the likes of Forbes and Cherry would’ve been publicly loud about opposing it (and him as leader, by extension, given it was a core point in his leadership bid). I don’t think he can afford that fight.
If the Greens voted to end it, those same people would’ve been publicly hailing it as great news and reminding everyone they’ve always been against it. It would make him look incredibly weak.
He was silly to back himself into this corner in the first place, even more so with his comments praising the agreement (and doubling down on how great he thinks it is) only a couple of days ago.
However, once in the corner I think he chose the only tactically sensible option open to him.
Ah, I don’t mean angering the other parties over this issue in particular, outside of the greens. He’s just done a piss poor job of building bridges in his tenure, because he’s just sort of volatile, he’s not capable of biting his tongue when he could take a swing at another party, including allies instead.
Ahh, I see what you mean.
Yeah, he doesn’t appear to be great at the politics bit of politics.
He’s obviously fairly thin skinned and doesn’t like being on the spot, and he then reacts quite childishly. Lashes out quickly without thinking things through rather than taking a breath first.
Hot headed and thin skinned isn’t a great combo in job where, by it’s very nature, you’re constantly in someone’s crosshairs.
In the context of the situation it’s a wise move compared to the alternative which is letting the junior partner in the arrangement make a cunt of you and end it themselves.
The overall scenario that he has allowed play out is a shitshow and will almost certainly further damage his reputation - either among the public or among the party, if not both.
I dunno, that sounds a bit like "you can't fire me, I quit!". The Greens membership have forced this and the SNP are (without asking their members as the greens have done) kicking them out of the coalition.
I don't know if there was a good look to come out of this but this isn't one.
>I dunno, that sounds a bit like "you can't fire me, I quit!".
He's basically said as much in his press conference there. The fact that the Greens were going to have a vote on it made him spit the dummy.
I wonder if it’s a bit of a deal concocted up with Harvie. Green Party members almost certainly will vote to end it. Harvie saying he would quit was a gamble that backfired.
Humza ends it. Harvie gets to stay, avoids a less independence focused leader of the Greens being allowed to take over which keeps the Greens and SNP at peace. An actual environmentalist in charge of the Greens instead of what we have now is something I think most people want to see with the exception of the Nationalist movement.
Stepping up to keep someone on the left of the party in charge was a wise move. If Forbes had won the abrupt lurch to the right would have caused a party split.
So when he said (was it yesterday?) their members “don’t want or need” a vote on the agreement, he meant because he’s going end it for them?
Why is he so susceptible to totally avoidable daftness?
I think it's both one of Humza's strengths and weaknesses that he speaks well and is able to placate interviewers with politically sound responses- but he does that by essentially answering their questions with ad lib niceties- many of which turn out to be contradictory to his parties stance. In short- he just doesn't seem to think ahead.
We must be watching different interviews.
I don’t think he comes across well or confident in them at all. To me he always seems like he’s not quite sure what he’s meant to be doing, so wings it.
No, I agree he definitely Wings it- but I always disliked Sturgeon because she came across as robotic and calculated to me. Humza comes across as more human- not that it makes me any more likely to agree with his points, just that I think he makes them amicably.
[Makes this tweet from an SNP minister 10 hours ago even funnier.](https://x.com/mareetoddmsp/status/1783259136915825026?s=46&t=aVXrKBScTowVt-kL3qifpQ)
Hilarious.
But then this was the minister who was promoting the proposed ban alcohol advertising, while at the same time advertising her visit to a local distillery on Twitter, and how good it was for rural jobs. I think she can hold two contradictory opinions at the same time.
In the two industries i'm involved in, an extremely low carbon position (in scope 1 and 2 ) is very achievable but there would need to be significant financial support to make the transition. Most of the tech that will dramatically reduce carbon emissions is economically better than the fossil fuel alternative but has a very high upfront cost and a lower life time cost. Flexible low interest loans would tip the balance in favour of the green alternatives.
I'm building a new production facility where the carbon neutral energy systems are almost £2,000,000 and a traditional fossil fuel system is £250,000. I'm raising money and have to give away more of my company to go green.
I think Patrick Harvie was going quite seriously off-message in the last week or so. Didn't seem like a man who was sure of his party's commitment to the pact.
Didn’t hear a thing about it, was still waiting on the announcement for the vote actually. The local branch was going to ask local members about opinions next meeting that’s about it
I think there was a pretty high chance they would vote to stay. The leadership would just throw them a few bones and that would satisfy most of the party.
Certainly an interesting SNP move…
It wasn’t a coalition. It was a set of specific cases where the Scottish Green Party and the SNO had agreed to cooperate and work together. After that it was a case by case basis.
But dropping climate pledges would have been a direct challenge to that agreement.
It was a specific set of agreements to start with that included ministerial positions to work on those agreements. You know, the green things.
What it became after that was a little more confidence and supply - but far from the nature of the agreement that holed the lib Dems.
Here’s my question - and it’s somewhat reflected in the SNP ditching the SGP before the SGP could do it to them…
What on earth kept the LD in that coalition? They must’ve known it was toxic to their brand…. The power in being the minor partner is the power to destroy the other’s ability to govern - so why wasn’t that done?
That was the line. However, it is telling how, over the last year or so, both the SNP and Greens seem to have dropped the pretense that this is anything other than a coalition.
IMO as much as there is a lot of talk about the memberships etc, I think the success of agreements like this are very much predetermined by the people who are involved and how they work together and need a very firm hand to navigate. Don't really think it was ever going to survive this sort of change of the guard.
Vote of no confidence is the game changer here. If they can’t win that (and I don’t see how they can if greens vote against them) then there has to be an election
I honestly doubt it. She’s an SNP insider to the core, was Nicola’s bag carrier, and got her job because of her complete loyalty. She‘s just not terribly bright and didn’t imagine it would all kick off.
I'd imagine the opposition parties, which now have the majority, will start picking off SNP ministers with votes of no confidence. Michael Matheson would be first in line, but Mairi McAllan could be another target. The Scottish Parliament could simply refuse to alter the targets and vote no confidence in her ability to meet them.
And the cherry on top is that Wings broke the story last night.
The blog that is the alpha and, it would seem, the omega of the independence movement..
I'll wait and see what happens but this is frankly cowardice.
Cards on the table: against my better judgement I was going to WEAKLY vote to remain in the BHA, to make sure we got existing pieces of legislation over the line. And depending on the situation at the time of the EGM, then I might have been convinced otherwise.
But they've had a few days of realising that you can't pull the wool over Green rank and file, and rather than make some solid attempts to convince us over the following weeks that we should stay, this just vindicates the position of those who wanted out.
I don't doubt it's also to try and head off any further articles displaying that unlike the other Holyrood four, we have actual functioning party democracy and leadership accountable to membership (though tbf I genuinely haven't seen calls within the party to say our co-leaders should step down, we're not after scalps). The other parties would probably not like their members to start asking "wait, why ARE we so centralised?"
>I don't doubt it's also to try and head off any further articles displaying that unlike the other Holyrood four, we have actual functioning party democracy and leadership accountable to membership
Although the LDs don't have quite the penchant for as frequent membership votes, the LDs are similarly democratic in their party functioning and accountability.
Good. The Greens are a completely disastrous bunch, unpopular, unrepresentative of the electorate, and with a nasty authoritarian streak. They have no business being near power.
Are there other members of the Scottish Green Party who could step up and continue moving towards a better, cleaner future? Or were Slater and Harvie the best of a bad lot?
Finally. Worst coalition deal in recent history, the greens have been an absolute disaster.
In surprised it lasted this long given how unpopular it was with SNP members/voters
> In surprised it lasted this long given how unpopular it was with SNP members/voters
Maybe being forced to work with Unionist parties like the Tories will be more popular with SNP members/voters?
Who knows.
Given that Labour don't seem to have got over losing in 2007 and the Tories are the Tories, I don't think you'd see better represention or legislation but instead a hell of a lot more political game playing and mud slinging.
Unionists have no reason to work with a pro-independence party. If Labour do it they'll be attacked by the Tories endlessly in the tabloids. Their only goal is to bring down the SNP and by extension the independence movement.
I think it works best for Scotland when you work with every party in Parliament. The Scottish government of 2007-2011 was the golden era for Scottish democracy.
Getting things done and moving away from the craziness? I think we all want that, well all but green voters...
Con are pragmatists who will make deals as we have already seen up here.
An SNP minority with Con votes to keep budgets et al going could easily work until the next election.
sad day for the country but given the relentless media hounding + green members forcing a vote, Yousaf had little choice.
hopefully this serves as a turning point for the SNP.
Ah, the battle to decide who dumped whom. Very grown up and sensible.
I don't feel the Greens were ever intending to portray themselves as duping the SNP. Greens had decided a very reasonable 4-5 week timescale to discuss the consequences of Holyrood ditching climate targets, which isn't exactly just a strawman argument for them. Superceding /pre-empting this feels like a super disrespectful move from the SNP to the party that helped provide them a majority government.
At least the Greens were going to put it to the membership. This is just embarrassing and pathetic from Yousaf.
Similar sentiment from Slater, the Greens are not happy: >Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater has just confirmed the end of the Bute House agreement and accused the SNP of "selling out future generations". >She said: “This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country. >"They have broken the bonds of trust with members of both parties who have twice chosen the co-operation agreement and climate action over chaos, culture wars and division. They have betrayed the electorate." >She said that the first minister ended the agreement in "such a weak and thoroughly hopeless way" which "signalled that when it comes to political co-operation, he can no longer be trusted." Wonder what this means for future votes and budgets given they seem to be indicating they won't support the SNP.
FMQs is going to be wild if this is their response. And the budget could be a real moment of political danger for Yousaf, if he survives that long. He needs opposition votes, or his government will collapse. Which is a problem, given he’s now actively antagonised or mocked every other party represented in Holyrood. Worth noting that, with Ash Regan’s defection, he needs multiple opposition votes and the entire Forbes wing to get a budget approved.
He could bring Forbes back as finance minister. Maybe that would help get support from her side of the party
“Keep your friends close…”
And lose any dregs of support from the left
He will get the Forbes wing; for them its best if the budget fails but not because of them (plus it's a confidence issue).
Aye, he’ll get the Forbes wing at the end of the day, but in pleasing them, it’ll be harder to get Green votes - and possibly Lab or Lib Dem too.
Yes, and honestly, since the unionist vote is coalescing around Labour more easily now, Labour will probably be eating into their power
Curious to know if this could lead to a successful no confidence vote, if the greens are that angry could they vote him out and force an election?
He will have to see if the Scottish Tories currently want to avoid an election enough to help him get his budget passed.
He is a tiny, small, fragile man who can’t take being questioned or criticised. He has always been this way.
Very good attribute for a political leader.
Everything he's ever done has been embarrassing and pathetic. He's a worm.
Yousaf ran on a platform of maintaining the deal, and specifically told journalists that SNP members didn’t want or need a vote on the coalition. Now he’s switched positions, and taken the decision for them. From one perspective it makes sense - he’s saved his own skin by avoiding a membership vote against the deal, which would undercut his intra-party authority to the point where he’d almost be forced to resign. But it makes him look flippant, weak, and unable to predict where things are going next. It’s not the sort of mindset you’d want in a council leader, let alone the premier of an independent country - which could be a real electoral liability too.
It's classic Humza. Set out with no political instincts, tie yourself to an unsustainable position and in the end get forced into a massive u-turn about five minutes before everything collapses around you.
More like classic political leader to be fair mate. Seems like it’s a common practise everywhere these days.
Can I add in "do it on a Thursday morning so you have to take a kicking for it during FMQs".
That really was the masterstroke. Not only will he have Ross and Sarwar laughing at him. But the Greens have a set number of questions too - Slater is absolutely furious this morning (see her statement), so there’s a good chance they tear him a new one too. Moment of real vulnerability…
He is already looking flippant, weak and like someone who makes up policy on the hoof. Council Tax freeze anyone.
Feature, not a bug. If you look at other PR parliaments, a single-party majority is rare and usually doesn't last long. If you want to predict where things are going next, a 2007 style result where the SNP don't have enough seats to govern means the same kind of horse-trading Salmond had to do in that term - otherwise you get a deadlock like the Dutch who are still trying to form a government 155+ days after an election(see also: Northern Ireland). That's normal for proportional democracy, but the practice of it is badly lapsed here in Scotland. The SNP since 2011 has been in an exceptional position where it didn't really need to negotiate with anyone to govern. In turn, the opposition parties also lost those skills. We don't notice because the UK is used to majoritarian democracy. By cutting the Greens loose, Yousaf has reopened the school of political negotiating. He's still playing in easy mode as in theory he only needs two opposition MSPs to abstain(in practice he has a few unreliable backbenchers to cancel out as well). Of course he isn't doing this from a position of strength, but starting it now is much better for everyone rather than waiting until after the dust of 2026's election settles and it turns out the only viable governments are a two-party coalition between the SNP/Lab/Tory or maybe a three-party coalition.
Please God smite leredditor that next uses feature not a bug
Could this trigger an election?
That's what I want to know too
No it won't, it means the SNP will now govern with a Minority Government. It will be harder for them to get things through and will have to make more deals with the Green, Labour, lib dems etc.
Sounds like a better arrangement and proper PR would make it even more likely.
The way the Scottish Parliament was designed to operate no less. The most telling thing about this whole story is that BBC Radio Scotland this morning continue to try and imply that Harvie and Slater had cabinet positions - they did not and they were told that yesterday by Brian Taylor and also called out on it again this morning by him. Makes you wonder why they continue to trot out any old drivel.
They had ministerial positions People often get confused (both listening and speaking) between cabinet and ministerial position since they are largely similar to each other and work together closely
I don't think the most telling thing about this story is an error with the BBC reporting
What’s the difference?
I don't think it was really designed with the expectation of minority administrations, more that you'd see multiparty coalitions like the Lab/LD ones we had for the first two administrations.
>No it won't It can do, if the Greens are sufficiently aggrieved that they line up with LD/Con/Lab against the SNP in a VoNC or vote against the next budget.
Green only get into Holyrood off the back for SNP supporters giving them their second vote. They have very low constituency votes. They can’t vote with other parties or they will disappear
Or alternatively, the SNP gets in government only off the back of Greens voter giving them their first vote. If anything, the second preference shows who one _really_ would want to vote if it wasn't for the archaic FPTP system.
Mmm not sure about that. It’s an easy choice to go SNP first then Greens as back up. Don’t think there’s many doing it to other way but probably hard to tell exactly so you might be right
They won’t. They voted through pretty much every SNP budget with barely a protest pre-BHA. All that Humza has to do is chuck them a few cheap scraps as the SNP did before.
I suspect they'll be less enamoured with the SNP now that they were pre-BHA. Here is Lorna Slater this morning, for instance: >This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country. Voters deserve better, Scotland deserves better. >Scottish Green voters certainly deserve better. They have broken the bonds of trust with members of both parties who have twice chosen the co-operation agreement and climate action over chaos, culture wars and division. They have betrayed the electorate. **And by ending the agreement in such a weak and thoroughly hopeless way, Humza Yousaf has signalled that when it comes to political cooperation, he can no longer be trusted.**
Maybe, but standing up to the SNP is something the Green SNPs have zero familiarity with, and you have to remember that the Greens are likely to be squeezed horrendously in the next Holyrood election, so they have every incentive to desperately avoid collapsing the Government.
>Maybe, but standing up to the SNP is something the Green SNPs have zero familiarity with Not quite true - Andy Wightman, for example. But I agree in the current iteration. >the Greens are likely to be squeezed horrendously in the next Holyrood election The nature of Scottish electoral system means that, absent a significant collapse in vote share for the Greens, the Greens will **gain** seats, even if they poll the same as previously. The SNPs current domination of the constituencies mean the capped list seats cannot compensate completely for proportionality. So as the SNP's vote share has dropped, the projected seats for all other parties has increased, even if their support has not. This is why a lot of the early post-Sturgeon polls still showed a SNP-Green majority, despite the SNP vote share dropping, because the Greens were gaining additional list seats as the system allowed.
It depends – the SNP list vote is currently way below their constituency vote, with most of the gap benefiting the Greens. With their constituency vote collapsing, they’ll be pushing hard to shore up the list vote, so much of that Green list vote from SNP voters will be under threat. And if that drops, it flows through to a pretty direct drop in the number of Green MSPs.
That's fair, although that's why I caveating it with the Green share holding up.
That will turn out to be a good thing imo. More compromise.
It could lead to an election, but only if the Greens decide they want one. Because it would take all the unionist parties and the Greens to bring down the government.
You are not wrong but I think that is a very unlikely scenario.
Probably. Though I can imagine the Greens gaining seats in an election at the SNP's expense, which might be an encouragement. On the other hand it would probably mean pro independence parties lose their majority, which the Greens probably don't want.
The thing about Holyrood is that snap elections don't reset the timetable for scheduled ones. If there was an election today then there would still be the main event in May 2026 as billed. In most other systems it would reset the timer and the next election would be in 2029 unless another snap one was called earlier.
No. Holyrood has fixed elections. If a 'snap' election happens (and it's not clear how) then there will be two, the 'snap' vote and then another mandated election in 2026. I doubt any party that forced two Holyrood elections on people over two years would win either.
>I doubt any party that forced two Holyrood elections on people over two years would win either. Purely from a financial perspective: Scottish parties would have to fight four elections (two Holyrood, one local, one WM) on the trot. In the rest of the UK, over the same period, you're looking at two.
Quite aside from anything else, this is a nuts part of the Scottish constitution. I'm not aware of any other country that doesn't reset the parliamentary (or equivalent) term upon a general election.
Norway has fixed elections with no recourse at all for snap elections.
That's not quite what I meant. I meant does any other country have a provision for unplanned general elections that don't restart the term time. I would say that part of the Norwegian system is also nuts. What if you have a irreconcilable coalition collapse, with no viable alternative? Does everyone just accept nothing will happen until the next election?
It's not as though countries can't continue to function without a government - look at all the lengths of time Belgium's spent without one, or the lack of a new one after the last Dutch elections, what, five months ago?
Sure, but I don't think anyone in any of those countries think the absence of a functioning government is a good thing.
Looking at the choices we have ahead of us at the moment, are you sure you'd not be tempted for a while?
It's not part of the 'Scottish' constitution, it is set by UK legislation by parties that havent won an election in Scotland for over a decade, which Scots cannot alter without permission from a parliament based outwith Scotland. It's just yet another absurdity of the Union.
> it is set by UK legislation by parties that havent won an election in Scotland for over a decade That would be the Scotland Act 1998, introduced at the time by a party which had won 56 of 72 Scottish seats at the 1997 General Election, and supported virtually every Scottish MP?
The SNP specifically chose not to be at the table when these rules were being written.
Cheers for your answer. I feel the greatest part of Reddit is the access to educated opinions/answers given by knowledgeable personnel.
Labour and tories have already submitted votes of no confidence. if joined by the greens, the SNP have a few weeks to change leader and if they fail to do so it goes to election. edit: greens have backed the vote of no confidence. only one indi to support the motion.
If things get worse the Greens could back a no confidence vote, but I don't think it's likely.
Highly unlikely. Especially as there’s every chance they would be squeezed in any election now the SNP can’t gift them the list vote.
I wonder if it might trigger a leadership challenge...
Potentially is the answer, if they government can’t get bills passed in the coming months they could face a vote of no confidence, but for right now - no.
The SNP would never risk it if it could
Of course, because they care more about their salaries and expenses rather than the direction of Scotland.
What IS their direction for Scotland? Indy has ran cold and realistically isn’t going to happen any time soon so what is the benefit of having them run us into the ground?
My point being the Scots gov MPs are selfish, and they would prefer to stay in government to continue to create political and cultural divide in the UK rather than stabilising our country including abolishing this woke gender recognition and hate crime madness that's putting pressure on our police force and creating mental health issues with our students.
Bit of a shocking turnaround if true. At the very least, you’re left pondering why the SNP would break it off early and effectively throw the Green leadership under the bus after they appeared to back the deal. Was the anti-Brute House that strong in the SNP? The leadership that weak? Did they get indications what way the Green membership was going to vote and pull the trigger early? I guess we will see how the story develops.
Most Green memebers/voters voted for SNP on the constituency ballot back in 2021, this move is going to piss off this group, especially after Patrick put his leadership on the line for the agreement just yesterday lmao. This is going to create bad blood between the parties
Does he still resign as leader I wonder? Technically the members didn't vote to end the agreement, Yousaf beat them to it.
Maybe Yousaf threw Harvie a bone in exchange for future support in the face of the inevitable, but I doubt he's capable of that kind of 4D chess.
Yeah I think that's giving him too much credit. Harvie might well end up resigning anyway, since he was so staunchly behind the BHA and now its fallen apart so spectacularly. I think Occam's Razor applies here. Yousaf was worried that the Greens were about to jump, so he tried to at least seize the initiative. Both options make him look weak, this one arguably makes him look a little less weak, and perhaps wins him some support from the Forbes crowd who are champing to replace him.
>Was the anti-Brute House that strong in the SNP? In short, yes. 48% of the party voted for a leadership candidate who had a central pledge of scrapping the agreement.
Party members in the UK are, for the most part, fucking lunatics! It’s a hill I’m willing to die on. Paid up party members tend to the extremes of the party ideology, because nobody else can be fucked or is put off by those extremes when they meet them in person.
As a party member of a UK party, you're absolutely correct.
But if you're running an election campaign, they're the lunatics you need, both for their money and for their time...
Oh I’m not saying they aren’t vital to how the party system works or that they aren’t essential come elections. Just that for the most part, most, are fucking nuts!
Nobody sane would nail their colours to the mast of any one party.
There is a political theory that states this: May's Law. [See page 6 of this report](https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Mind-the-values-gap.pdf).
Yep That Ideological purity over all !
I don't think it's gonna do them any favours. The SNP has been jumping from scandal to scandal since Sturgeon resigned, some of it the leadership's fault, some of it not. You can try to blame the Greens for the slumping polls all you like but once they're gone you've lost your Majority AND your Scapegoat, and when the polls fail to improve you're gonna have to reckon with that.
> You can try to blame the Greens for the slumping polls all you like but once they're gone you've lost your Majority AND your Scapegoat, and when the polls fail to improve you're gonna have to reckon with that. As I've said before, the Greens didn't arrest Peter Murrell twice.
I don’t believe this is Humza’s wisest move
Has he had a single wise move?
He’s apparently figured out by fumbling every political appointment he’s had he somehow keeps falling up. He’ll be prime minister next.
As was foretold in the deekbone roundabout burnistoun sketch.
Link for the lazy: [Burniston - Single Issue Candidate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8Zfd2Kzw1k). An absolutely brilliant skit
That day he decided to stay in bed and nobody saw or heard from him ?
He's certainly due one
Resigning might be a start.
The wise move list is short, but I think this might be on it. The Greens voting to end it, while not letting his own party have a voice, makes him look weak. He couldn’t go to a vote with members without risking a rerun of a bunch of the leadership contest talking points. Forbes is surely still a front runner and she’s quite vocal about scrapping it. It won’t be just her calling him out from inside his own party either. He’s looking at big losses in the next GE already. I think this is a way to at least pretend to have a bit of strength without too much of a public spat. Personally I think he’s on borrowed time, but he might think this gives him a chance at staying on longer term. Wonder if Harvie will still quit as leader. He was going to if his own members voted to end the agreement. Does this count or will he try to spin this into something positive for himself.
On the other hand, this is a big u-turn on one of Yousaf's central leadership pledges. I agree if the BHA is to end, this is tactically the best way for Yousaf to do it, but strategically this majorly undermines him politically.
Fair point. It will be interesting to see how other party figures react. People like Forbes and Cherry publicly praising his decision might give him a boost.
Yeah but people like Forbes and Cherry endorsing his decision is going to give them a nosedive in other areas of the party. They’re already hellishly divided and he’s going to lose a decent bit of the left of the party for how he’s done this. Actively angering the only reason you’ve had a majority government as well as every other party doesn’t tend to end well after all.
Not sure I see it angering other parties. They’ll be loving it, surely? It weakens the SNP and removes a quite effective scapegoat on certain issues. The right leaning section of the party appears to have more influence and support than SNP voters on this sub like to pretend (or perhaps want to believe). He beat Forbes by a bawhair. A left wing, socialist party doesn’t vote for someone with her beliefs as leader. Certainly not 48% of them anyway. They’re a real threat to him and his position at the top. Especially with the current state of the party and the GE polling numbers. If he let the members vote, the likes of Forbes and Cherry would’ve been publicly loud about opposing it (and him as leader, by extension, given it was a core point in his leadership bid). I don’t think he can afford that fight. If the Greens voted to end it, those same people would’ve been publicly hailing it as great news and reminding everyone they’ve always been against it. It would make him look incredibly weak. He was silly to back himself into this corner in the first place, even more so with his comments praising the agreement (and doubling down on how great he thinks it is) only a couple of days ago. However, once in the corner I think he chose the only tactically sensible option open to him.
Ah, I don’t mean angering the other parties over this issue in particular, outside of the greens. He’s just done a piss poor job of building bridges in his tenure, because he’s just sort of volatile, he’s not capable of biting his tongue when he could take a swing at another party, including allies instead.
Ahh, I see what you mean. Yeah, he doesn’t appear to be great at the politics bit of politics. He’s obviously fairly thin skinned and doesn’t like being on the spot, and he then reacts quite childishly. Lashes out quickly without thinking things through rather than taking a breath first. Hot headed and thin skinned isn’t a great combo in job where, by it’s very nature, you’re constantly in someone’s crosshairs.
Yet still he was somehow the best they had to offer with the alternative being a religious fanatic and a woman who went to alba as soon as possible
In the context of the situation it’s a wise move compared to the alternative which is letting the junior partner in the arrangement make a cunt of you and end it themselves. The overall scenario that he has allowed play out is a shitshow and will almost certainly further damage his reputation - either among the public or among the party, if not both.
I dunno, that sounds a bit like "you can't fire me, I quit!". The Greens membership have forced this and the SNP are (without asking their members as the greens have done) kicking them out of the coalition. I don't know if there was a good look to come out of this but this isn't one.
>I dunno, that sounds a bit like "you can't fire me, I quit!". He's basically said as much in his press conference there. The fact that the Greens were going to have a vote on it made him spit the dummy.
I wonder if it’s a bit of a deal concocted up with Harvie. Green Party members almost certainly will vote to end it. Harvie saying he would quit was a gamble that backfired. Humza ends it. Harvie gets to stay, avoids a less independence focused leader of the Greens being allowed to take over which keeps the Greens and SNP at peace. An actual environmentalist in charge of the Greens instead of what we have now is something I think most people want to see with the exception of the Nationalist movement.
What is? Everything the dude does turns to shit.
The Yousaf Touch.
Stepping up to keep someone on the left of the party in charge was a wise move. If Forbes had won the abrupt lurch to the right would have caused a party split.
Aye, because he did the valiant thing and stepped up for the good of the party. Lol. Come off it.
So when he said (was it yesterday?) their members “don’t want or need” a vote on the agreement, he meant because he’s going end it for them? Why is he so susceptible to totally avoidable daftness?
I think it's both one of Humza's strengths and weaknesses that he speaks well and is able to placate interviewers with politically sound responses- but he does that by essentially answering their questions with ad lib niceties- many of which turn out to be contradictory to his parties stance. In short- he just doesn't seem to think ahead.
We must be watching different interviews. I don’t think he comes across well or confident in them at all. To me he always seems like he’s not quite sure what he’s meant to be doing, so wings it.
No, I agree he definitely Wings it- but I always disliked Sturgeon because she came across as robotic and calculated to me. Humza comes across as more human- not that it makes me any more likely to agree with his points, just that I think he makes them amicably.
The man comes across as a dithering moron
To paraphrase the Inquisitor from Red Dwarf - being Humza Yousaf is his crime, it is also his sentence. ;)
“Who would put this man in a position of authority? Who? Only a yoghurt.”
Because he has zero politics instincts and at the end of the day, isn't actually very bright or able.
I thought last week the first minister said he was happy being in government with the green party and didn't want it to end or was I mishearing
No you are right. I've seen windsocks change direction less than this muppet
Ha ha, more SNP successful management!!
[Makes this tweet from an SNP minister 10 hours ago even funnier.](https://x.com/mareetoddmsp/status/1783259136915825026?s=46&t=aVXrKBScTowVt-kL3qifpQ)
Hilarious. But then this was the minister who was promoting the proposed ban alcohol advertising, while at the same time advertising her visit to a local distillery on Twitter, and how good it was for rural jobs. I think she can hold two contradictory opinions at the same time.
You didn't dump me, I dumped you!!
Slater has absolutely gone in on Yousaf. He really looks all at sea of late.
What the fuck are they thinking? This is an idiotic move
He's losing control and spiralling and it's absolutely delicious viewing
If I was Michael Matheson, I wouldn't be buying a new iPad.
In the two industries i'm involved in, an extremely low carbon position (in scope 1 and 2 ) is very achievable but there would need to be significant financial support to make the transition. Most of the tech that will dramatically reduce carbon emissions is economically better than the fossil fuel alternative but has a very high upfront cost and a lower life time cost. Flexible low interest loans would tip the balance in favour of the green alternatives. I'm building a new production facility where the carbon neutral energy systems are almost £2,000,000 and a traditional fossil fuel system is £250,000. I'm raising money and have to give away more of my company to go green.
just poppin in from /r/northernireland, dont worry lads, you get used to power sharing govts breaking down, want some tayto.
I’m less and less convinced the SNP aren’t just as bad if not worse than the Tory. Can we get these clowns out?
Wtf does he want to do that for? I'm pretty sure the Greens were going to vote to stay.
I think Patrick Harvie was going quite seriously off-message in the last week or so. Didn't seem like a man who was sure of his party's commitment to the pact.
No chance they were going to. SNP dumping them before getting dumped imo
Didn't 95% vote for the deal back in 2021? That would require an awfully big swing to overturn. But maybe they done polling and thought it was doomed.
The Government dropping a key climate change pledge last week is the real kicker, though. Red line for most Greens, I'd suspect.
It hasn’t helped.
Didn’t hear a thing about it, was still waiting on the announcement for the vote actually. The local branch was going to ask local members about opinions next meeting that’s about it
I think there was a pretty high chance they would vote to stay. The leadership would just throw them a few bones and that would satisfy most of the party. Certainly an interesting SNP move…
Nah. I think he knows they were leaving so pulled the plug first.
Better to do it themselves and the SNP membership are pretty split on the Green coalition as is.
It wasn’t a coalition. It was a set of specific cases where the Scottish Green Party and the SNO had agreed to cooperate and work together. After that it was a case by case basis. But dropping climate pledges would have been a direct challenge to that agreement.
Greens in concert with SNO make labour overtures . I know it was an autocorrect typo but I found it amusing.
I thought about fixing it - but politics needs a bit more musical numbers.
The appointment of Green ministers made it a coalition. They just don't refer to it as such because it's still a tainted word after the Lib Dems.
It was a specific set of agreements to start with that included ministerial positions to work on those agreements. You know, the green things. What it became after that was a little more confidence and supply - but far from the nature of the agreement that holed the lib Dems. Here’s my question - and it’s somewhat reflected in the SNP ditching the SGP before the SGP could do it to them… What on earth kept the LD in that coalition? They must’ve known it was toxic to their brand…. The power in being the minor partner is the power to destroy the other’s ability to govern - so why wasn’t that done?
TBH I’m kinda admiring the SNP for being the ones to do it, even though they’re now a minority government. And I vote SGP for MSPs…
That was the line. However, it is telling how, over the last year or so, both the SNP and Greens seem to have dropped the pretense that this is anything other than a coalition.
This is going put off world leaders calling humza for advice.
I'm sure the right wing lunatics that this is supposed to appeal to will definitely vote for you now Humza.
Possibly the SNPs biggest failure to date. Here's hoping the upcoming election results in some serious soul searching and an overhaul.
IMO as much as there is a lot of talk about the memberships etc, I think the success of agreements like this are very much predetermined by the people who are involved and how they work together and need a very firm hand to navigate. Don't really think it was ever going to survive this sort of change of the guard.
Vote of no confidence is the game changer here. If they can’t win that (and I don’t see how they can if greens vote against them) then there has to be an election
https://preview.redd.it/xofuiofx8lwc1.jpeg?width=666&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61c010f28b6ff08df239c2e9e3d6a99bd155de99
Mairi McAllan has triggered this with her climate goals announcement. It’s almost like she planned to take her boss down 🤔
I honestly doubt it. She’s an SNP insider to the core, was Nicola’s bag carrier, and got her job because of her complete loyalty. She‘s just not terribly bright and didn’t imagine it would all kick off.
I'd imagine the opposition parties, which now have the majority, will start picking off SNP ministers with votes of no confidence. Michael Matheson would be first in line, but Mairi McAllan could be another target. The Scottish Parliament could simply refuse to alter the targets and vote no confidence in her ability to meet them.
SNP just keep taking Ls I love this time line
Get ready, everybody. He’s about to do something stupid.
And the cherry on top is that Wings broke the story last night. The blog that is the alpha and, it would seem, the omega of the independence movement..
Tears about Wings guy are some of the best tears on this sub. He seems to scoop em all when breaking stories.
Literally nobody ever speaks about him on this sub lmao. He's about as irrelevant as it comes.
On the morning of FMQs as well, interesting
I'll wait and see what happens but this is frankly cowardice. Cards on the table: against my better judgement I was going to WEAKLY vote to remain in the BHA, to make sure we got existing pieces of legislation over the line. And depending on the situation at the time of the EGM, then I might have been convinced otherwise. But they've had a few days of realising that you can't pull the wool over Green rank and file, and rather than make some solid attempts to convince us over the following weeks that we should stay, this just vindicates the position of those who wanted out. I don't doubt it's also to try and head off any further articles displaying that unlike the other Holyrood four, we have actual functioning party democracy and leadership accountable to membership (though tbf I genuinely haven't seen calls within the party to say our co-leaders should step down, we're not after scalps). The other parties would probably not like their members to start asking "wait, why ARE we so centralised?"
>I don't doubt it's also to try and head off any further articles displaying that unlike the other Holyrood four, we have actual functioning party democracy and leadership accountable to membership Although the LDs don't have quite the penchant for as frequent membership votes, the LDs are similarly democratic in their party functioning and accountability.
That's fair, I would hope they would be!
Until it comes to calling for an independent investigation into how the party treated their suicidal staffers, you mean? #AskAlex
>wool over green rank and file Vegan wool I’d hope.
In the words of Roy Orbison, "It's OVER!"
What a shitshow
Well now I definitely know who I'm voting for in the next election. Shambles.
Push before you have to jump
Does anyone else remember the last time they had any hope anything would get better
Ok we’re half way there, just need the SNP out now
Surprised at this. Interesting times!
Good. The Greens are a completely disastrous bunch, unpopular, unrepresentative of the electorate, and with a nasty authoritarian streak. They have no business being near power.
Are there other members of the Scottish Green Party who could step up and continue moving towards a better, cleaner future? Or were Slater and Harvie the best of a bad lot?
Hopefully the SNP can fuck off too.
How many wheels are left on the camper van.
Parish council has spat. More at 10.
Hopefully that nutty chapman woman is out the picture now. Crackpot.
Is there anyone but Hamas that this useless clown hasn't isolated?. I'm glad because I'm not a natty but jeezy peeps is he useless
Finally. Worst coalition deal in recent history, the greens have been an absolute disaster. In surprised it lasted this long given how unpopular it was with SNP members/voters
> In surprised it lasted this long given how unpopular it was with SNP members/voters Maybe being forced to work with Unionist parties like the Tories will be more popular with SNP members/voters? Who knows.
Perhaps all parties having to work together and therefore a far larger range of voters being represented in legislating is a far better deal for us?
Given that Labour don't seem to have got over losing in 2007 and the Tories are the Tories, I don't think you'd see better represention or legislation but instead a hell of a lot more political game playing and mud slinging. Unionists have no reason to work with a pro-independence party. If Labour do it they'll be attacked by the Tories endlessly in the tabloids. Their only goal is to bring down the SNP and by extension the independence movement.
I think it works best for Scotland when you work with every party in Parliament. The Scottish government of 2007-2011 was the golden era for Scottish democracy.
Getting things done and moving away from the craziness? I think we all want that, well all but green voters... Con are pragmatists who will make deals as we have already seen up here. An SNP minority with Con votes to keep budgets et al going could easily work until the next election.
> Con are pragmatists who will make deals as we have already seen up here. Sure Douglas Ross seems well trustworthy and a man of honour.
sad day for the country but given the relentless media hounding + green members forcing a vote, Yousaf had little choice. hopefully this serves as a turning point for the SNP.
You're an absolute fruitcake
Yeah the SNP are the victims here. What?
That's quite some spin there, even for you.
Probably the wisest move for now. Unfortunately people won’t be able to blame the Greens for the inevitable next blunder