Scottish Conservatives to hold Vote of No Confidence in Humza Yousaf
First Minister Humza Yousaf, Tory leader Douglas Ross and Labour leader Anas Sarwar.
By Bill Heaney
The Scottish Conservatives call for a vote of no confidence in Humza Yousaf after the SNP lurched into crisis on Thursday.
At First Minister’s Questions in the Holyrood parliament, Douglas Ross said Humza Yousaf was “unfit for office” after he U-turned on the Bute House Agreement.
The Scottish Conservative leader said Humza Yousaf had shown he was “weak” after abandoning the coalition deal with the Scottish Greens just 48 hours after backing it.
Douglas Ross also highlighted brutal quotes from the Greens which accused Humza Yousaf of “political cowardice”. They said the “weak” First Minister had “betrayed the electorate”.
He added: “We called the SNP-Green deal a coalition of chaos – and it’s ended in absolute chaos.
“Humza Yousaf’s government is in crisis. It has unravelled. He has abandoned the platform he stood on.
“This weak First Minister jumped before Green members pushed him.
“The Scottish Conservatives will demand a vote of No Confidence in Humza Yousaf.
“He has failed as First Minister. He has focused on the wrong priorities. He has governed in the SNP’s interests, not Scotland’s interests. He is unfit for office.
“This morning, Humza Yousaf might have signed the moving out of Bute House agreement.
“Even his nationalist coalition partners don’t trust him.
“He claims it’s a new beginning. It’s really the beginning of the end.
“This should be the end of the road for this weak First Minister.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “The First Minister has spent weeks defending this discredited Government.
“Just days ago, he said the Bute House Agreement was ‘worth its weight in gold’.
“He was pleading with Green party members to keep his shambolic Government together: ‘I hope that the cooperation agreement will continue and I hope that Green members will also see the benefit of that cooperation’.
“But now he has been forced into a humiliating u-turn.
“And he knows it. These are his words: ‘I can’t imagine being the…leader of the SNP and the first thing I do is destabilise the government by going into a minority government. I think that would be a tremendously foolish thing to do’”
“The First Minister is claiming that this is a sign of strength but for once people agree with Lorna Slater: he is ‘weak, hopeless and untrustworthy’
“The challenges facing our country have never been so great, but Scotland’s Government has never been so poor and its leadership has never been so weak.
“One in seven Scots are stuck on an NHS waiting list as he fails to get a grip of the NHS crisis.
“Families are struggling to make ends meet while this Government wastes public money.
“And green jobs going elsewhere while he scraps the Government’s climate target.
“The people of Scotland can see the SNP have lost their way: weak, divided and incompetent. Putting party before country.
“The people of Scotland didn’t vote for him to become First Minister.
“The people of Scotland didn’t vote for this mess and this chaos.
“It’s time to end this circus and call an election.”