One of Scotland's leading political experts has said why it is better for the First Minister to resign before the no confidence vote rather than stay on and lose it.
Humza Yousaf announced just after midday on Monday he is stepping down as he faced two no confidence motions in Holyrood after pulling out of the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens last Thursday.
With the Greens saying they will not support Mr Yousaf in the no confidence motion in him it looked uncertain he would have enough backing to survive.
READ MORE: SNP's Kate Forbes hopes Scottish Greens will 'embrace' her
READ MORE: Could Kate Forbes replace Humza Yousaf without a contest?
The only way he could remain is if the Alba Party's single MSP Ash Regan or another MSP from another opposition party would back him. However, that situation looked increasingly unlikely.
James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, told The Herald: "Unlike his pre-emptive move in getting rid of the Greens from government, it would be sensible to pre-empt what now is all but inevitable and resign before he is forced out at some point whether through a vote of no confidence or obvious loss of authority.
"Even if he survived a no confidence vote he has little authority and would only stagger on and be forced to resign at some point soon.
"His party will put pressure on him to stand down as carrying on would make it even more difficult for the SNP to retain many seats in the Commons and any prospect of winning the next Holyrood elections. The dignified thing to do would be to accept this now and resign."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel