SNP: Grab your popcorn - Humza Yousaf vote promises 'plenty of drama' at Scottish Parliament

In the space of ten hours, Humza Yousaf has lost his majority and his future as First Minister hangs on a knife edge

In the words of Patrick Harvie, “there will be lots of drama to follow next week”.

The Scottish Parliament has officially entered unchartered waters and right now it doesn’t look like anyone is at the helm. When the Bute House Agreement was signed back in 2021, it was something that had never been done before in Holyrood.

So it probably goes without saying the fall-out was also going to be something that had never been done before in Holyrood.

Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie, flanked by their fellow Scottish Green MSPs. Image: Lisa Ferguson/National World.

Humza Yousaf said he had been thinking about the future of the SNP’s power-sharing agreement with the Greens for some time, and had spoken to various close aides before finally deciding to chuck the Greens under the electric bus. Surely neither he nor his advisors saw this chain of events unfolding.

In the space of just ten hours, Mr Yousaf has gone from having a pro-independence majority in Parliament to his future hanging on a knife edge.

By ending the Bute House Agreement with the Greens, he has doomed his own future, angered his former Government partners and given opposition parties the opening they were looking for.

We are basically seeing a horrendously bad break-up playing out to the world in the seat of Scottish democracy.

Opposition parties only need to win the no-confidence vote by one – a simple majority is enough to secure the vote.

In a cruel twist of fate for Mr Yousaf, his former leadership rival Ash Regan now holds all the cards as the only opposition MSP not to declare their intentions. She may not have won the First Minister crown, but she can revel in being the kingmaker only a year down the line.

Mr Yousaf technically doesn’t have to go if he loses the no-confidence vote. It’s not like a no-confidence vote in the Government, which would force the First Minister and all his Cabinet ministers to resign. But it is difficult to see how he could cling on to power when he knew the majority of the parliament was actively against him.

Let’s say he does lose – where does that leave Parliament? MSPs would have to elect a new first minister, but who would they choose?

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Would Deputy First Minister Shona Robison step up? Would Kate Forbes, second choice in last year’s leadership race, put her hat back in the ring? Would the SNP look for a safe pair of hands in Neil Gray? Or will they just give Stephen Flynn a call and see what he says?

All of these options would give us a situation where an SNP first minister is not the SNP leader, which would cause all sorts of upsets. And a wildcard suggestion – what if the opposition parties rally together and put forward a candidate of their own?

An unlikely turn of events, but you would have said the same thing about the previous 24 hours. There’s even more perilous waters ahead if Parliament cannot agree on a new first minister within 28 days, because as at this point Parliament gets dissolved.

But surely someone will be shoved onto the deck to steer the Good Ship Holyrood before we get to that point.