Political editor Alistair Grant outside Bute House after Humza Yousaf resigns

The Scotsman

Political editor Alistair Grant outside Bute House after Humza Yousaf resigns as First Minister of Scotland

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

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.

07:54 (upbeat music)

07:58 (upbeat music)

08:01 [MUSIC]

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