Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf resigned on Monday, the latest setback for his Scottish National Party, which has been embroiled in a slow-burning crisis over a funding scandal that erupted after its leader resigned last year, POLITICO reports.
Yousaf, who has come under severe pressure since the breakdown of a power-sharing agreement between his Scottish National Party and the left-wing Scottish Greens last week, told a news conference in Edinburgh that repairing damaged ties with the country’s opposition parties “is only possible with someone else at the helm.”
He said he intended to “remain first minister until my successor is elected” but that he would leave office after the SNP leadership election.
Yousaf’s position came under great threat after he broke a power-sharing agreement between the SNP and the Greens last Thursday amid a bitter row over the abandonment of climate targets.
The manner of the break-up infuriated the Greens leadership, which said it would support opposition efforts to oust Yousaf through a vote of confidence in the Scottish parliament. Yousaf will also face a separate vote of confidence in his entire government.
Speaking on Monday, Yousaf said that while a path through a vote of no confidence this week was absolutely possible, he was “not prepared to trade his values and principles” with anyone just to retain power.
The outgoing first minister admitted that in rejecting a coalition deal with the Scottish Greens he had “underestimated the extent of the hurt and upset” he had caused that party. Before leaving the press conference podium without taking any questions, he said:
Although I am sad that my time as first minister is ending, I am so grateful and blessed for having the opportunity so few are afforded — to lead my country, and who could ask for a better country to lead than Scotland.
Yousaf, whose party is under police investigation over its finances, has struggled to reverse the SNP’s poor performance in opinion polls ahead of the Westminster election later this year.
