Humza Yousaf has resigned as the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader and Scotland\u2019s first minister. The move comes soon after Yousaf ended the SNP\u2019s alliance with the Scottish Greens, which triggered two no-confidence votes put forward by opposition parties that Yousaf looked likely to lose. \u201cI am not willing to trade my values and principles or do deals with whomever simply for retaining power,\u201d Yousaf said during a televised announcement. The pro-independence SNP\u2019s fortunes have faltered amid a funding scandal and the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon as party leader last year. An internal struggle has followed over how progressive the party should pitch its policies as it seeks to woo back voters. Earlier this month, Yousaf said he was \u201cquite confident\u201d that he could win a no-confidence vote. However, by Monday, his offer of talks with other parties to bolster his minority government was uncertain. The Muslim head of a major political party and Scotland\u2019s youngest elected leader, Yousaf said he had \u201cunderestimated\u201d the level of hurt after ending a power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens last week. \u201cI have concluded that repairing the relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm,\u201d he said. Yousaf\u2019s resignation as SNP leader triggers a search for his successor and consequently new first minister. The Scottish Parliament would need to back any replacement in the post within 28 days. An election would be held if no majority is reached. During his resignation speech, Yousaf called for the leadership contest to find his replacement to start as soon as possible. He will remain in place as first minister until then. Glasgow-born Yousaf, whose paternal grandparents and father emigrated to Scotland from Pakistan in the 1960s, had been hailed as a polished communicator who the SNP hoped would be able to unite the fractured SNP. As support flagged for the SNP\u2019s central policy \u2013 independence for Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom \u2013 he took charge in March 2023 after winning a leadership battle. His tenure was to last just a year. \u201cPolitics can be a brutal business,\u201d a tearful Yousaf said on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Humza Yousaf has resigned as the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader and Scotland\u2019s first minister. The move comes soon after Yousaf ended the SNP\u2019s alliance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16639,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}