Euan McColm: Fatally-weakened Humza Yousaf has seen Greens turn the end of Bute House Agreement to their advantage

First Minister’s mistake was not ditching Bute House Agreement and breaking from Nicola Sturgeon’s agenda when he took office

When Humza Yousaf announced his bid to replace Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the SNP and, therefore, First Minister of Scotland last year, he was more than happy to be seen as the continuity candidate.

Sturgeon was still, in those days before police raids on her house and SNP headquarters, hugely popular among party members. It made perfect sense, then, for Yousaf to drape himself in her colours.

But, while Yousaf may have benefited from his continuity candidate status, his mistake on winning was to try to govern as a continuity First Minister.

Finance Secretary Kate Forbes, 32, has been on maternity leave since the birth of her daughter Naomi in August, so the contest is not ideal timing for her. But she was named by Nicola Sturgeon as a potential future leader and is seen as one of the frontrunners. MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch since 2016, she was thrown in at the deep end as Finance Secretary, being appointed just hours before the 2020 budget after her predecessor Derek Mackay was forced to resign over a sex scandal. She put in a confident performance and is seen as extremely capable.Some have suggested her conservative views on issues such as abortion and gender reform, stemming from her religious convictions, could be a problem.

In her resignation statement last February, Sturgeon conceded that, after almost nine years in the job, she had become too divisive a figure to move the independence campaign any further forward.

Yousaf seems not to have been paying attention. Sturgeon had, indeed, become a polarising figure. And for that, she had her policy obsessions to blame.

Sturgeon misjudged the public mood on independence, reportedly promising a second referendum which she could not deliver and the majority did not want. And her focus on issues such as reform of the Gender Recognition Act to allow trans people to self-ID into the legally recognised “sex” of their choosing showed a leader who’d lost touch with an electorate that cared more about the NHS, education, and the economy.

Announcing the end of the Bute House Agreement – the power sharing deal between the SNP and the Scottish Greens – on Thursday, Yousaf declared a “new beginning” for his government. He was more than a year late.

The time to announce a “new beginning” was last March when he became Scotland’s sixth First Minister.

On succeeding Sturgeon, Yousaf should have completely ditched her agenda and presented a new prospectus, tightly focused on those issues that truly matter to the majority of voters.

Had Yousaf negotiated the end to the Bute House Agreement and explained to voters that it was time for his Government to focus on their priorities, he may have enhanced his authority.

Instead, Yousaf took over from Sturgeon and continued with her agenda. Despite massive public opposition to Holyrood’s reform of the Gender Recognition Act Yousaf ploughed on with a costly and doomed legal challenge to Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s decision to block it on the grounds it would have a negative impact on the UK-wide Equality Act.

Reform of the GRA was (and remains) a key issue for the Scottish Greens. The sense that Yousaf was pushing ahead with that legal fight in order to keep his junior government partners happy was palpable.

But it was not only voters who had concerns about the influence of the Greens on the Scottish Government. If one were to throw a dart into a meeting of SNP MSPs, odds are that it would jab a Green-sceptic.

While some nationalist politicians – the MSP Fergus Ewing and the MP Joanna Cherry, for example – were willing to speak publicly about their desire to see an end to the Bute House Agreement, a great many more would spill their guts in private.

The view of many SNP members at Holyrood was that their party was taking damage for policies which were actually helping the Greens build support. Take those GRA reforms, for example. Suburban voters, the people of middle Scotland who first put the SNP in power back in 2007, did not like them at all. Green voters – young, self-styled radicals – on the other hand, thought the legislation entirely necessary.

While SNP MSPs had to justify to their members why they were pursuing that policy, Green MSPs were lauded by their own supporters and given a platform from which to declare themselves the most “progressive” force in politics.

As Humza Yousaf comes to terms with the inevitability of his political demise this weekend (even if he soldiers on through a planned vote of no confidence next week, he is now so weakened that a gentle tap on the chest would shatter him into a billion tiny pieces), speculation mounts about who might succeed him as leader of the SNP. Will Westminster leader Stephen Flynn cut a deal with an MSP who, as deputy, would hold the fort at Holyrood until he was able to make the move from Westminster? Will education secretary Jenny Gilruth make a move? Is Kate Forbes – the former finance secretary who came second to Yousaf in last year’s leadership contest – ready for another crack at taking the top job?

Whoever the next leader of the SNP is, they will have to accept that a number of independence supporters are now lost the Greens. No matter how much pressure Yousaf’s eventual successor might come under from ideologues in their own ranks, they should wave goodbye to those voters.

The Scottish Greens have skilfully turned the First Minister’s decision to abruptly end the Bute House Agreement to their advantage. Party co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater have cemented their positions as leaders of the radical wing of the independence movement. If you’re young, hungry for change, and you want to see puberty blockers prescribed to children, then the Scottish Greens are the guys for you.

The relentless focus of our seventh First Minister must be on the priorities of “small c” conservative middle Scotland, not the obsessions of a few hundred activists who are, temporarily, angry with their parents.

A strong SNP leader will address the truth that there will be no second referendum in the short to medium term and park the constitutional question. If the nationalists are to build support for independence, a period during which they display a degree of competence would help

When are now deep into when-not-if-he-goes territory. It would not at all surprise me if Humza Yousaf announces his resignation while you’re reading this.

If the next SNP leader wants to avoid the same fate, they need to remember the policies and pledges that once made their party an unbeatable political force.