Patrick Harvie has said he wouldn't have been "comfortable" remaining as a minister if Kate Forbes had won the SNP leadership race. 

Speaking exclusively to Neil Mackay for The Herald, the Green co-leader said Ms Forbes' positions were "incompatible" with the Bute House agreement, and it "would have ended".

He said: "I personally wouldn’t have been comfortable remaining a minister." 

Read more: Patrick Harvie on Kate Forbes, SNP chaos, Israel, trans rights and net zero

The Glasgow MSP and zero carbon minister said the SNP's leadership election had "troubled" progressive voters due to "how prominent social and economic conservativism was within the SNP’s upper echelons – and they hadn’t been aware of that". 

He said Ms Forbes "came out with lines around progressive taxation you could easily have heard from Liz Truss". 

And Mr Harvie also raised concerns about the MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch' s views on same-sex marriage. 

Ms Forbes lost support in the leadership race when she said she would have voted against gay marriage if she had been an MSP in 2014. 

Mr Harvie said: "It just didn’t feel like the modern Scotland that’s been built since devolution began.

"A lot of folk who bought into the idea of a modern socially progressive Scotland in the devolution era probably were pretty taken aback by some of the attitudes that came out.”

Read more: Kate Forbes to miss SNP conference for the first time since becoming MSP

But he said abandoning the SNP deal would have been a decision for the party council, rather than for himself and co-leader Lorna Slater. 

Mr Harvie also spoke about the accusations the Greens are pulling the SNP's strings. 

He said: "I usually laugh because most portraying us that way in the next breath say we’re achieving nothing.

"You can’t have it both ways. Neither extreme is true."

He also reflected on the recent disarray in the ranks of the SNP, and the challenge its leader Humza Yousaf has at the SNP conference and in the months ahead. 

Read more: Get the popcorn, the SNP have gone quite mad

“Inevitably as you get a change of generation, whether it was Humza Yousaf or anyone else after Nicola Sturgeon stepped down, they wouldn’t come with the standing of having done the job at the highest level for decades.

“That opens up the possibility of more collegiate leadership.

"What Humza Yousaf is doing is a change of culture. That’s always going to be difficult, and ruffle some feathers."

Read the full interview in The Herald newspaper today or on the Herald website.