The Greens had fiercely opposed the SNP’s decision to impose a freeze on local authorities’ council tax rates, and the parties had also been at odds over a decision to pause the prescription of puberty blockers to children in the Scottish NHS.
Meanwhile, right-leaning SNP parliamentarians — including Yousaf’s one-time rival to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader, Kate Forbes — had made a bête noir of the Green alliance, with Forbes warning that the Greens’ environmental policies would “over-regulate rural communities out of existence.”
Fergus Mutch, a former senior SNP adviser who voted against the initial power sharing agreement, said: “In many ways ending the deal is the easy part. Humza needs to quickly draw together a strategy that can take him into the general election and steal Labour’s thunder.”
Further complicating things for Yousaf, the opposition Scottish Conservatives put forward a motion of no confidence in the first minister — in a bid to test whether the Greens, whose seven MSPs have propped up the SNP in the Edinburgh parliament, are still willing to back Yousaf, even if they’re not governing with him.
Party management
John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University in Glasgow and an expert pollster, told POLITICO that by ending the coalition and embracing minority government, Yousaf may be attempting to assert more control over his own fractious party.
Disunity was “one of the things that seems to underlie the weakening of the SNP position in the polls since Yousaf became first minister,” Curtice said.
