OK, this is my fourth post of the day, but I'm having to do this just to keep up with the pace of events. Two things have changed since my last post - to my surprise, it turns out the Greens will vote in favour of the motion of no confidence, leaving Alba and Ash Regan holding the balance, and the vote will be a non-binding vote of no-confidence in Yousaf as First Minister rather than a binding vote of no-confidence in the government. Some people are interpreting the latter point as meaning that the whole process is a sham, and an indication that the Tories don't really want to bring the SNP government down, because an early election would cost the Tories themselves a lot of seats.
I don't think it's as simple as that. A non-binding motion is easier to vote for (which may be why the Greens signed up so quickly) but it's still very hard for Yousaf to ignore if it goes against him. In that event, there would be three possible outcomes -
1) Yousaf respects the vote and resigns as First Minister, but does not resign as SNP leader. This would almost certainly result in an early election, because the SNP would presumably not be willing to nominate an alternative First Minister, and no unionist government would be arithmetically viable.
2) Yousaf respects the vote and resigns as both First Minister and SNP leader. This would be a highly desirable outcome from the point of view of the independence movement, because it would allow a more popular and credible SNP leader to become First Minister without an early election being held. If we could be sure this is what would happen, it would make sense for Ash Regan to vote for the motion of no confidence.
3) Yousaf refuses to respect the vote and tries to stay in office. The opposition parties wouldn't be able to leave it at that, because he would be defying the will of parliament. A binding vote of no-confidence in the government would surely follow swiftly - even if the Tories ran away from it for self-preservation reasons, Labour and the Lib Dems would step into the breach and the Tories would look ridiculous if they abstained. The Greens might turn the screw by saying they'll have no choice but to vote for the motion unless Yousaf stands aside to allow fresh leadership to take over - at which point he probably would.
So whichever way you look at it, the outcome of the vote next week (assuming it's held) does matter enormously.
What a day indeed. And you’re quite right once again. A wounded first minister with a majority of -1 is in no position to hold it all together. If he falls, Scotgov falls, that’s my read of today’s drama.
ReplyDeleteHi folks, this is your public service reminder that if an SNP leadership election is called for whatever reason, the cut-off date to have a vote is likely to be the date the vacancy arises. So if you want to join the SNP to get a vote, do it now, don't delay. And then vote Forbes and let's get our party back.
DeleteAs late as that? Thanks for the heads up!
DeleteMy local SNP is so trans captured that it’s even featured on Wings, so I have my doubts I could stand the meetings without being reported for a thought crime.
Paper membership good enough?
Oh yes.
DeleteMy local SNP is so trans captured that it’s even featured on Wings
DeleteSo trans captured that they led even Wings to do an article about the trans issue?
According to John Curtis, bringing down the governement would lead to as sort of "emergency election" that would bring in a government for the remainder of the current mandate - there would still be an election on May 7th. 2026. So, two Holyrood elections, one either side of a Westminster GE. No-one's cup of tea. I think voter push-back, real or imagined, would be a strong deterent to initiating initiating that.
ReplyDeleteYour second option might be in everyone's best intersts. We can but hope.
Sorry, posted in haste there, that was me, Rob, referencing Mr Curtis.
DeleteIf Labour won Holyrood then Westminster, Starmer can always amend the Scotland Act to spare his stooge the embarrassment of another election. Labour administrations both sides of the border is a huge boon for them they will want to protect from unnecessary contact with the electorate.
DeleteThe Greens have quite hilariously lost the plot over this. The rational thing to do would be to negotiate with the government on a policy by policy basis, maintaining influence while maintaining distance, and taking credit for anything that works. It's what Alba should do. It's what the Greens DID do once upon a time.
ReplyDeleteIf Salmond plays his cards right, all Harvie and Slater will have achieved will have been to empower Alba, the party they (until today) professed to hate above all others.
The indignity of losing your ministerial Mondeo…
DeleteWas it an electric Mondeo?
DeleteGood question. A quick Internet search doesn’t show any pictures of him getting out of one. But he seems to be taking the sudden lack of publicly funded wheels fairly well…
Deletehttps://i2-prod.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article10554143.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/0_JS118643668.jpg
The Greens have quite hilariously lost the plot over this. The rational thing to do would be to negotiate with the government on a policy by policy basis, maintaining influence while maintaining distance, and taking credit for anything that works. It's what Alba should do. It's what the Greens DID do once upon a time.
DeleteI guess they think they can get back into government as part of a Labour-led coalition.
If a Holyrood election happens it'll be a good test of the old "oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them" cliche. Literally no one in the universe trusts the Labour party, the question is just how sick folk are of the SNP
Who'd have thought the Greens could cast such a blight on Scottlsh Politics?
ReplyDeleteWe're going to need more glyphosate.
Some entirely reasonable comment from Dr Jim, who clearly has his finger on the pulse of the village of Edinburgh:
ReplyDelete"It’s funny how you’d think the Tories and Labour would be the happiest about all this kerfuffle, but it’s not, the most delighted in fact is Salmond’s Alba because he thinks he now holds some cards using his pet MSP
I think he’ll be mistaken there, Regan is a dead woman walking as it is, her constituents given the chance would have her head in the stocks at the end of the village street if there was any risk of her adhering to democracy, calling an election giving them the chance to vote her out"
She will be voted out, with Alba down where it is in the polls. Much must change to alter that.
DeleteBut she’s in the perfect position to do it!
In a dummy spitting out contest, who could spit the furthest; Patrick Harvie or Dr. Jim?
DeleteWe are blessed with champions!
Delete"I think he’ll be mistaken there, Regan is a dead woman walking as it is"
DeleteWill she lose the constituency, almost certainly. Will she return on the list? I wouldn't bet against it. Resigning as a minister to vote against GRRB gained her a lot of friends. Women with votes!
SNP have been diverted away from their policy route of choice because of the Green party agreement , im a bit sad this has happened but to be honest the Greens have been more trouble than we need at this time .Once Scotland is independent we can look at many many more varied policies andlaw changes without the interference of englands westminster the BBC and english newspapers.I am surprised that the Greens given their small number chose to try and call the SNP,s bluff.
ReplyDeleteEmissions targets are still sacrosanct to the greens.
DeleteWish the same could be said of independence to the SNP!
I voted for Kate in the leadership contest and Ash got my second vote. Both had a good 'handle' on the BHA, in my opinion. At the hustings meeting I attended, Humza and others punted the line that the BHA saved them having to constantly 'wheel and deal' to get business done. I have always felt that was a very lazy trope, as the SNP governments of 2007 - 2011 and 2016 - 2021 worked on the basis of listening, doing deals and getting things done. As Humza was elected on his pitch of a 'continuity' which is no longer in place, then - in my opinion if he loses the confidence vote as First Minister - he has to stand aside as party leader.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agreed! I would’ve voted the same way if I had SNP membership at the time. I feel very much the same about Humza‘s future. Out out out!
DeleteWhat hustings was that?
DeleteYousaf must be the most politically inept FM in 25 years of Holyrood, and now he's toast through his own stupidity. Unfortunatly for the SNP their alternative FM candidates are even worse.
ReplyDeleteExplain how Kate Forbes would be worse?
DeleteAnon at 8:49, I agree, Yousaf is undoubtedly the best of a bad bunch.
DeleteWho is this bunch of gurning morons of which you speak? He already tossed out both of his closest challengers. Jenny Gilruth hasn’t had the time to truly disgrace herself yet, but we all have expectations for her.
DeleteShe's right wing. She believes that people who have sex outside marraige will spend eternity on the end of Satan's toasting fork. She probably believes in creationism. She would be slayed. Unfortunatly, the alternatives will make Yousaf look like a great statesman.
DeleteJenny Gilruth disgraced herself when she pranced up to the podium to joyously tell us that the Scottish government lumbered the taxpayer with a £90 million liability not with a thourogh risk assesment, but with a two sentence e-mail, like that's her idea of normal. I guess the other one is the babbling woman who does the government accounts, whoever she is.
DeleteRe: Kate. Did she say she’d outlaw fornication and sodomy when she was campaigning to be first minister? And did Humza? His faith demands precisely the same.
DeleteYeah but he's just pretending. She actually believes that stuff.
DeleteThe National:
ReplyDeleteIf Regan choses to back the First Minister, it will mean him giving major concessions on the trans rights agenda that defined so much of the Greens’ time in government, and taking a more urgent approach on independence.
On the latter, many Yes voters will be happy. But if he gives ground on the former, the rebels in his party switch from the relatively few MSPs aligned with Kate Forbes to the much larger number who back the Scottish Greens’ trans rights policies to the hilt.
What a state we’re in when Scots votes for the party of independence elect a bunch of trans-crusaders with no interest whatsoever in anyone but themselves.
DeleteI'm not aware of any particularly strong evidence that the "much larger number" within the SNP are opposed to gender critical views. It's a mistake to mix up going along with something out of loyalty to the leadership with genuine belief.
DeleteIndeed. Hopefully the National’s Hamish Morrison misread them.
Deletehttps://www.thenational.scot/news/24279642.inside-room-humza-yousaf-tore-bute-house-agreement/
Perhaps Humzah has already sounded Ash out?
ReplyDeleteHey KC, shouldn’t you be partying? You sound a bit anxious and peeved.
ReplyDeleteWhat a pain in the arse that KC is.
DeleteUnionists are NATS, Brit nats.
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm comparing Patrick Harvie to Stalin or Humza Yousaf to Hitler, but what today reminds me of is the launch of Operation Barbarossa. Harvie must have been jumping around like Stalin in total disbelief. "But we had a pact! But we had a pact!"
ReplyDeleteIt's also like the end of an episode of Golden Balls when someone steals the money after swearing blind they were going to share.
Who the f*** will ever believe a word Yousaf says in future?
Predictably, Paul Kavanagh has paid a visit to Narnia today: "The SNP is only two votes short of an absolute majority and only needs to get one or two votes from Ash Regan or one of the Greens on a case by case basis in order to get its agenda passed."
ReplyDeleteThey MIGHT get Ash Regan's vote in return for a heavy price, but who is this mysterious "one Green" who is going to conveniently break ranks to save the SNP?
Does the PO have a vote? Who will vote with the tories? Labour? Ex snp? Lib Dem’s?
ReplyDeleteCall me mad but i fully expect to see SNP in govt for another two years.
ReplyDeleteOpposition plus greens don't want an election.
Yousaf has got rid of a wart and won't lose power as a result, at least until next election.
Ps Wings has lost the plot or maybe is a paid Dementor of the indy movement. I dont even like the SNP but I'm no daft, unenthusiastic at current predicaments doesn't mean I throw only credible route , give or take a few percentage points in electorate, to Independence.
"Opposition plus greens don't want an election."
DeleteJudging by Ross Greer's comments tonight, the Greens pretty clearly do want an election. So do Labour, so do the Lib Dems. The Tories probably don't, but they're hardly going to allow themselves to be seen to prop up the SNP.
Well, according to my mostly automatic spreadsheet, if in 2021 1/3rd of the votes were SNP voters lending their votes on the list to the Greens, and instead of that they'd given them to the SNP, the SNP would have had 2 more list seats for a total of 66, 1 in Lothian and 1 extra in the H&I.
DeleteYou reap what you sow.
On the face of it, every opposition everywhere is obliged to claim they want an immediate election. Otherwise they're implictly declaring confidence in the government.
DeleteDo they actually want one? I don't think so. The nature of a Holyrood snap election makes doing it in the latter half of a term a miserable proposition. They'd rather let the SNP burn for those two years, then take over with a full term ahead of them.
Yousaf would have known Harvie and Slater pretty well. I wonder if he lured them into a tantrum where they threw their toys out the pram?
ReplyDeleteAnyways, it'll be interesting to see the first batch of polls post BHAgate.
ReplyDeleteTerence Callachan Dundee , So the greens think it was ok if they had 4 weeks to meet and decide if they should end the Bute House agreement but when SNP and Mr Yousaf said dont bother , there,s the door , they go in a huff ? I think Mr Yousaf did the right thing.I want gay and trans people to have a better happy life i want action to reduce waste and deal properly with global warming but lets faceit englands westminster does not give us enough pocket money to do it properly and they can at any time just forbid Scottish government plans , so the greens who have caused a fair bit of grief to the SNP are no longer in partnership , so what , we now are short of a couple of votes to have a majority but thats where we were for most of the years before the partnership with the greens , its manageable its not perfect but SNP are still by far the biggest party in Scotland and at the next election will maintain that lead because of todays decision to shift away from the greens, many SNP voters will not give their list vote to the greens ever again and will go SNP both votes , okay that might not increase SNP seats very much but it will show up as SNP votes and highlight the trap once again that westminster set with the d'hondt voting system in the Scottish parliament .SNP is as strongly supported as ever , even more so after dumping the greens who are now seen for what they are a party open to the highest bidder likely to vote with the unionists now out of spite.Humza ? well like him or not , he is clever and not easily shaken , a good steady leader in my opinion.Alex Salmond is still my hero but there are still too many Scottish folk persuaded by the english newspapers to hate him on the basis that he must be guilty even though the court with its best efforts couldnt get a guilty verdict.The english brought down Alex then went after Nicola and Yousaf will be on their list now.Its a pattern .
ReplyDeleteAn awful lot of Scots don’t need English newspapers to persuade them to dislike Salmond, Sturgeon and Yousaf.
DeleteI actually like Yousaf. I think he has the best of intentions and I think he understands Scotland.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is true that many don't. That alone makes his position untenable.
I wish it weren't that way, but independence is more important and if Yousaf ages with that, he will stand down.
Agrees, not ages
Delete