Scotland: The Humza Yousaf Year & a bit

(Praise be for a proper motion of no confidence in a *government*. Did anyone do this PM/FM nonsense before Jeremy Corbyn in 2018?)
 
Madíson said:
(Praise be for a proper motion of no confidence in a *government*. Did anyone do this PM/FM nonsense before Jeremy Corbyn in 2018?)
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Nicola Sturgeon What GIF by The SNP


In Scotland (with much more reasonable parliamentary rules) every ministerial appointment is confirmed by parliament, so it makes sense that parliament does motions of confidence in individual ministers too. And considering majority governments are (absolutely rightly) difficult to achieve in Scotland, you wouldn't want to bring down the government over a single minister/portfolio necessarily.

Or put another way:

DON'T APPLY WESTMINSTER LOGIC TO HOLYROOD

(Confidence motions in ministers should however be binding and I was shocked to learn yesterday they weren't)
 
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I’m fine with any other minister having an individual vote of no confidence, but even in Scotland the FM and the government are so intrinsically linked that it doesn’t make sense to me to have separate votes. A government with a FM lacking the confidence of the Parliament should be brought down.
 
In practice, yeah, and like I say, the difference is that Douglas Ross wants to damage the SNP but probably doesn't actually want an election, and Sarwar does want an election.

However, I think there are some edge cases where the chamber may legitimately want to bring down a first minister without bringing down the whole government. For example, if Sturgeon had a worse time with the Salmond stuff, which occurred mid covid, I think it entirely reasonable to want the First Minister to resign whilst other ministers, and in particular the health minister, remain in post.
 
Even if Yousaf were to accept a pact with Alba, there is no chance Ash Regan will be retaining Edinburgh Eastern at the next election.

But yes, this is absolutely a mess of his own making. Surely no one in his team of advisers and strategists could have thought ending the BHA on acrimonious terms was a good idea. Even worse if they advised otherwise and he ignored them. The BHA was potentially coming to an end anyway, but he could have ended it on mutual terms rather than making an enemy out of his only allies in Holyrood.

If Forbes ends up becoming SNP leader and FM, do we have any idea how it will affect the party's support/membership? Are we likely to see the progressive wing switch to the Greens?
 


She's asked the Alba party to get ready to lose their single seat!

(Though yet another nail in Yousaf's coffin)
 
Is Kate Forbes likely to get the post? If she does then it makes my choice of who to vote for at the next election very easy.
 
Kala said:
Is Kate Forbes likely to get the post? If she does then it makes my choice of who to vote for at the next election very easy.
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Yes, she's almost certainly going to get it.

Thankfully though, she'll not be able to reverse the SNPs fortunes much and crash and burn at the next Scottish election. So at most we will have her for two years with a parliament that don't want the SNP to achieve anything.
 
Fair enough. RIP The SNP as a decent, worthwhile electoral proposition. Back to The Tartan Tories they go.
 
octophone said:
Fair enough. RIP The SNP as a decent, worthwhile electoral proposition. Back to The Tartan Tories they go.
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I doubt it, their membership is very much still on the left. They'll go through a few years of identity crisis, but short of letting Salmond back in, the right wing will drift to Alba and the SNP will land to the left of labour, especially if Starmer is as bad as expected.
 
Labour’s membership is well to the left of Starmer and it hasn’t helped them end up as a noticeably left wing party. If Forbes is the new leader, it will permanently taint their progressive credentials, in the same way that Farron did for the Lib Dems.
 
dmlaw said:
Labour’s membership is well to the left of Starmer and it hasn’t helped them end up as a noticeably left wing party. If Forbes is the new leader, it will permanently taint their progressive credentials, in the same way that Farron did for the Lib Dems.
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While yes, I do think it will do some long term damage, particularly to those that joined/voted since 2014, the different nature of Scotland and it's voting system makes a compelling electoral case for the SNP to be to the left of Labour. Especially if Alba begin to pickup some seats at actual elections rather than just through defections.
 
How has the Scottish Greens’ polling been affected by their time in semi-government?
 
I didn’t have a clue who Kate Forbes was but when I type her name in to google the first 3 images make her look quite PSYCHOTIC.
 
Rita said:
I didn’t have a clue who Kate Forbes was but when I type her name in to google the first 3 images make her look quite PSYCHOTIC.
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She had Deputy Head Girl And Never Got Over It energy.
 
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Him wanting to stay first minister during the leadership contest is very :eyes:

Wonder if the confidence vote goes ahead and they try and get him to step down quicker
 
I'm not very up on the ins and outs of Scottish parliament, how come this fell apart so badly? Was the Green alliance really that untenable, or is it just a weird unforced error on Yousaf's part?
 
VoR said:
weird unforced error on Yousaf's part?
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Entirely unforced error.

The Greens didn't want to end the Bute House Agreement, a small subset were taking it to a membership vote against MSP wishes (but in line with their constitution), and Harvie was staking his leadership on the line fighting to keep it.

The SNP didn't like either the Greens having so much power or having weeks of waiting, and so there was a ton of pressure to end it themselves.

However, what Yousaf chose to do was to ditch the Greens without talking to them or even most of his cabinet. He should have called the Greens in and negotiated an end to the agreement, or thrown it to the SNP membership and have them decide whether to keep it or not.

Or even just wait out the four weeks and deal with whichever outcome the greens chose. Even if they left, they'd still have supported the SNP in confidence and budgets if the end was more amicable. But the Greens were put in a position where they had no option but to vote against him or be seen as a pointless and weak party.

He chose the worst possible route given his circumstances, hence his resignation today
 
Well that’s this shit show over then. He was dealt a bad hand when appointed leader and played it badly at every turn. This feels like the culmination of a career built on falling upwards, having also been dismal in every role he had prior.
 
Scottish Labour still seem to be planning on their motion of no confidence in the government, so there could still be mess to come.
 
And the Tory on the news said they might still move their motion of no confidence in Yousaf!

MESS!
 
ZenGiraffe said:
Scottish Labour still seem to be planning on their motion of no confidence in the government, so there could still be mess to come.
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So what happens then? Can SNP be voted out by the other parties? Who would then go in as I am assuming the public wouldn’t have a say on it? :confused:
 
Rita said:
So what happens then? Can SNP be voted out by the other parties? Who would then go in as I am assuming the public wouldn’t have a say on it? :confused:
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Tory motion of no confidence in Yousaf is just for shits and giggles, has no legal consequence. Just political.

The Labour motion is in the government, and does have legal consequence. If it passed, every government minister is compelled to immediately resign, and parliament has 28 days to confirm a new first minister or an election is automatically called. They could also vote by 2/3rds to call that election without waiting the full 28 days.
 
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