Scotland’s SNP/Greens coalition collapsed this morning when Prime Minister Humza Yousaf kicked the junior party out of government before he could suffer the embarrassment of seeing them leave.
Mr Yousaf is understood to have sacked Green co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater from their junior ministerial posts after a week of violent infighting between and within the two parties.
Tensions have risen between the two parties over the government’s approach to trans rights, while Net Zero targets were watered down last week.
That prompted the Greens to call a vote this week on the failure of the 2021 deal. But Mr Slater and Ms Harvie reportedly left Bute House, the FM Edinburgh residence, before the start of the meeting.
Mr Yousaf had been accused of running a “zombie government” while waiting to hear whether the Greens would scrap the deal.
But after days of defending the deal, he decided this morning to scrap the deal, after his own backbenchers told him enough was enough.
Without this deal, the SNP will have to operate as a minority administration at Holyrood, raising questions about its effectiveness in governing.
Humza Yousaf called the meeting amid rumors that the power-sharing deal is on the verge of collapse.
Scottish Greens leader Patrick Harvie (pictured with co-leader Lorna Slater) has said he will resign if his party votes to leave government.
Concerns were raised yesterday that the Government would be in a state of “paralysis” until Green Party members decide whether to abandon the Bute House deal.
The Prime Minister is under growing pressure within his party to allow SNP members to vote on the issue, before Green campaigners have their say next month.
Opponents have expressed concerns about the impact the vacuum will have on Mr Yousaf’s administration.
The Bute House Agreement, which was voted on by members of both parties in August 2021, brought the Greens into government for the first time in the UK and gave the SNP a majority in the Scottish Parliament when its votes there been combined with those of the seven green MSPs.
The Greens were angry when Scottish Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan announced last week that the Scottish Government would abandon a key climate change target.
This, combined with the decision to suspend the use of puberty blockers for new patients attending Scotland’s only children’s gender identity clinic in Glasgow, led the Greens to declare last week that they would vote on the future of the power-sharing agreement. .
That vote is expected to take place later in May – but it now appears the SNP could end the Bute House deal before then.
The deal, which was signed in 2021 and named after the Scottish First Minister’s official residence in Edinburgh, brought the Green Party into government for the first time in the UK.
Senior SNP figures such as former leadership candidate Kate Forbes and party stalwart Fergus Ewing have already called for an end to the deal.
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