KATE Forbes has urged her supporters in the SNP to rally behind Humza Yousaf as he wrestles with a series of crises.

It followed a weekend report that her backers were already working on how to replace the First Minister, a story Mr Forbes dismissed as “ridiculous”.

The runner-up in the SNP leadership contest said: “I recognise I have support, but what I would say to my well-intentioned supporters is that we have to get behind the leadership.

“We’ve got enough challenges in the country and in the party that we must back him, we must support him and I think he’s got a hugely difficult job.”

READ MORE: Angus Robertson defends secret £33,000 extra as SNP Westminster leader

Ms Forbes also said she thought compromise was possible on controversial marine conservation plans which she had said should be scrapped during the leadership race. 

The Scottish Tories are due to force a vote on whether to rethink Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) at Holyrood tomorrow.

Beatrice Wishart, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, has also secured a vote-free member’s debate on the subject this afternoon.

A key plank of the SNP-Green joint government deal, HPMAs would see strict limits on human activity such as swimming and aquaculture in at least 10% of Scotland’s waters.

Coastal and island communities have warned the fishing ban could destroy their way of life.

Ms Forbes, the MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, said there had been a “huge backlash” to the proposals, but the Scottish Government’s approach had “turned a corner”.

🗣️ Time is running out to save on a full year of digital access with our lowest EVER offer.

Subscribe for a whole year to The Herald for only £24 for unlimited website access or £30 for our digital pack.

Been meaning to subscribe? Don't wait, this offer is only available for a limited time.

👉 Click here to subscribe

Appearing on BBC Radio Scotland, Ms Forbes was asked about the weekend claim in The Times that her supporters were planning a coup against Mr Yousaf.

The new SNP leader and First Minister has struggled to make headway since succeeding Nicola Sturgeon because of financial and governance crises dating from her time in charge.

They include arrests as part of a long-running police investigation into the SNP’s accounts, and the party’s inability to find auditors as it faces a series of accounting deadlines.

Ms Forbes, a former finance secretary who lost the SNP leadership race 48-52, said: “It is absolute nonsense, of course, with no basis in anything I have done or said. I’m a democrat. 

“I respect Humza Yousaf as our leader. I respect the result. I respect the voters.

“I recognise I have support, but what I would say to my well-intentioned supporters is that we have to get behind the leadership.

“We’ve got enough challenges in the country and in the party that we must back him, we must support him and I think he’s got a hugely difficult job.

“I support Humza Yousaf as our leader and I would call on my supporters to back him as well and give him the time and the space to negate these current issues.”

READ MORE: A&E waits 'dire' in Humza Yousaf's last month as SNP health secretary

She also rowed back on her previous demand to ditch the HPMA plan altogether. 

She said: “In the leadership contest, I said I would have scrapped HPMAs completely if elected,” she said. Obviously, I didn’t win. My position has always been that I think they are potentially jeopardising coastal communities.

“It’s important that the Scottish government works with coastal communities going forward.

“Fishing supports so many livelihoods in these communities, so my concern and the concern that has been expressed by some of these communities is that if we cut off that lifeline to the sea then it could jeopardise population recovery.

“I have to credit the Scottish government and particularly [SNP Net Zero Secretary] Mairi McAllan for her approach recently.

“If the Scottish government can continue to express their desire to work hand in glove with communities, particularly fishermen, then I think there is a way forward.”

Tory MSP Rachael Hamilton said she wanted the HPMA plans to be scrapped, despite being reminded her party backed piloting HPMAs in its 2021 Holyrood manifesto.

Insisting nothing had changed in her party’s approach to HPMAs, she said: “There is nothing in those words that say we want to see a further 10% protected areas on top of the already protected areas.

“We have looked very carefully at responses to the consultation from fishing communities.

“We are nervous about introducing a pilot with the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and spatial squeeze fishermen are facing right now.”

She pointed to pilots across the UK and said the socio-economic impact could be monitored because the “sea goes right round the UK”.