Humza Yousaf has announced that he will step down as first minister and SNP leader, little over a year since he was elected.
Yousaf told a press conference at Bute House, his official residence, on Monday that he would remain in post until his successor was elected to ensure a “smooth and orderly transition”.
He was facing two confidence votes at Holyrood in the coming days in a spiralling crisis precipitated by his axing of the governing partnership with the Scottish Greens last Thursday.
The Greens responded with fury, announcing hours later that they would support a motion of no confidence in Yousaf’s leadership brought by the Scottish Conservatives.
Without the support of the Greens and with the SNP two votes short of a majority, this left Yousaf reliant on the vote of Ash Regan, who defected from the SNP last year to join Alex Salmond’s Alba party in protest at lack of progress on independence and the Scottish government’s stance on gender recognition reform.
Yousaf, who was Scotland’s first leader of Asian and Muslim heritage, scrapped the Bute House agreement, which was brokered by his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon in 2021 and cemented a progressive, pro-independence majority at Holyrood, after increasing internal criticism within the SNP of Green influence on policy direction.
The Scottish Green party had been planning its own vote on the future of the agreement after members reacted angrily to the scrapping of climate targets and an NHS Scotland decision to pause the prescription of puberty blockers following the publication of the Cass review.
Yousaf has faced a seemingly endless series of challenges since his election, including the ongoing police investigation into party finances that resulted in the arrest of Sturgeon and her husband, the former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, being charged with embezzlement.