Humza Yousaf has said he wouldn’t have lasted much longer during his short tenure as first minister due to the SNP’s drubbing in the General Election – despite the party’s “conscious uncoupling” with the Scottish Greens.
On Tuesday, the former first minister announced he would be stepping down as an MSP ahead of the 2026 Holyrood elections.
It follows a turbulent year for the Glasgow Pollok MSP, who resigned as first minister just over a year after taking over the mantel from Nicola Sturgeon.
As a result, he became the first minister with the second-shortest tenure, following Henry McLeish.
In April, he made the decision to end the Bute House Agreement, which saw the minority SNP government bolstered by the Scottish Greens to get policies over the line in return for climate commitments.
However, growing concerns within the Greens over missed climate targets led the party to consider a vote on whether to continue the agreement.
But before the vote could take place, he ended the agreement, which proved to be a costly move for Yousaf.
He made the decision to stand down as Scotland’s first minister to avoid a vote of no confidence at Holyrood and was succeeded by John Swinney.
On Wednesday, Yousaf spoke to STV News about his decision to stand down as an MSP and said the move paves the way for “fresh faces” in the chamber.
He said: “You need that range and mixture of experience, but also some fresh faces coming through. And by stepping back, I can provide that opportunity.
“I think regrets, mistakes and achievements, I’ve got all three. But I’m also a great believer that things happen for a particular reason. So, I’ve got some regrets. I wish we had, and I had been able to convince more people to vote for independence in 2014.
“I think if we’d done that, we would have avoided the folly of Brexit, Liz Truss’s dreadful budget, being anchored to UK foreign policy, which I think is causing some real challenges, particularly in parts of the Middle East. So, that’s a regret, but plenty of achievements, plenty of things I think I could be proud of as well.”
Yousaf also referenced the termination of the Bute House Agreement, which he likened to Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay musician Chris Martin’s infamous amicable divorce announcement.
He admitted: “If I had managed that differently and the Greens had agreed to that ‘unconscious coupling’, I think as Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin once put it, then things might have lasted for another couple of months.”
Yousaf added that while John Swinney had only been First Minister for a matter of months following Labour’s sweeping victory in Scotland, his position would likely have been untenable even if his relationship with the Greens hadn’t soured.
He said: “I would have been in power as leader of the SNP for over a year, and I’m not sure I would have survived that general election result.
“But things happen for a reason, I’m a great believer in that, and I’m just immensely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had.”
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