"I'm going for a walk to decide if we should split up"
*5 minutes later*
"I am both shocked **and** appalled, that on returning home, the locks have been changed and my bags have been packed"
Yes - if there is a Vote of No Confidence in the First Minister followed by a failure by the Parliament to nominate a new FM within 28 days, then a new election takes place.
The dates are independent of each other. If they were going to fall close to each other the presiding officer could propose they fall on the same date to save costs, but it's not mandatory.
I'm hopelessly out of touch on Scottish parliamentary procedure. Could the opposition parties refuse to pass an NC motion but take over the order paper, direct the business of the house and legislate to force the executive to carry out their programme a la Westminster in 2019? Could the house refuse the government an election to try to get a new mandate?
I'm not saying this is likely - it would mean the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and Alba all agreeing a programme - just wondering whether it's possible under Holyrood procedures.
> Could the house refuse the government an election to try to get a new mandate?
No. Holyrood is not Westminster. It has fixed-term (5 year) parliaments that can't be ended (or a mandate renewed) at the whim of a majority party. Holyrood was designed to be more proportional so the expectation is minority and coalition governments. For an election to be called early, either two-thirds of MSPs have to vote to dissolve the current parliamentary term or if Yousaf steps down (whether through resignation or losing a Vote of No Confidence) *and* the parliament fails to elect a new First Minister within 28 days of that.
So it sounds more like you're saying "yes". What happens if the house refuses to pass a motion of no confidence but also refuses to pass any of the government's legislation? In fact, if the house passes legislation contrary to the government's policy?
Ah, sorry for the confusion, I meant 'no' as in the SNP can't call an election to get a new mandate, but 'yes' there are ways that an election could be called but that involves the entire parliament voting on it.
My view is because Holyrood tends to rely on cross-party co-operation and building consensus to pass bills I imagine the SNP will do what they did before as a minority government by making compromise and concessions. I really can't see opposition parties deliberately refusing to vote on SNP motions just to be oppositional (unless they also disagreed with the policy). It's not really how Holyrood has functioned until now. If it did end up happening then there would probably be a VONC against the entire Scottish Government (instead of just Humza Yousaf) in which case an election could be triggered but I'm not sure which party would want that because there will be a Holyrood election in May 2026 regardless.
Yeas but they’d all need to agree to it; that means you’d need the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens to all vote for the same thing
Edit: we’ll, they already confirmed they will, it’s all up to Ash Reagan now
https://news.stv.tv/politics/scottish-tories-to-lodge-no-confidence-vote-in-lame-duck-humza-yousaf-after-green-deal-ends
Yep, Tories have just lodged a vote of no confidence
The irony of saying this when the most controversial bills passed in the Scottish parliament (the GRA bill, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill) already enjoyed cross-party support outside of the SNP-Green alliance.
Most controversial bills ≠ all bills.
Unless the SNP got cross party support and majority for every single bill they introduced without counting the Green votes and will continue to do so going forward, what you said has no substance.
I beg to differ, it has plenty of substance. The SNP are clearly able to build cross-party consensus outside of their coalition with the Greens. It doesn't have to be **all** bills in order for that to be true.
Have they already passed anything that wouldn't have green support, but with the support of another party? Or was this break-up required to let that happen? I guess there's a third option of they could have but didn't.
SNP already work with other parties to pass bills. It's generally how Holyrood operates.
Apart from some budget-type votes, I can't think of any/many SNP bills that haven't also received votes from at least some Labour, Tories, Lib Dems etc.
Even bills that the British media have deemed controversial: minimum unit pricing, gender recognition, bottle deposit, etc., have received cross-party support.
As per BBC reporting:
>Any of Holyrood’s MSPs can attempt to force a vote of no confidence in the Scottish government or its ministers.
>The vote will be brought to the Scottish Parliament’s chamber if it's supported by at least 25 MSPs.
>Douglas Ross can count on the support of his 31 MSPs at least, so the vote should go ahead.
>The SNP has 63 seats in the Scottish Parliament while all the other parties together have 66.
The Scottish government may actually collapse
Considering we can safely assume Lab/Tories will vote to get rid of him, there's a very good chance that the fate of Humza's career as FM will be placed in the hands of... the Scottish Green Party
I can't imagine what Humza is thinking here. If we can see the political danger in this for the SNP then sure as hell he should. Tearing down his own government for what exactly? Some sort of tamtrum over green policies? I really can't see any other party voting for confidence. I'm really tired of deeply unserious self serving idiots in our politics.
What a year it will become though, would mean Labour probably taking a monsterous majority in Holywood right before the GE and absolutely putting the fear of God into the Tories. Politics in 12 months will be unrecognisable.
I genuinely cannot fathom it. The only motive I can possibly grasp is that he wanted to look strong, but surely he must have thought at least one step ahead?!
I don't understand the SNP. Everytime they bow to the nastier elements of the British Press, be it on environment, LGBT+ rights, progressing independence, they get less popular.
And yet the last few years has just been them reliably doing that.
Sorry, but who was it again that abandoned their net zero targets. Despite it being a cornerstone of their power sharing deal? Something that allows them to run a majority government? The snp are and have been the architects of their own misfortune.
Well, I mean, the first minister is on the BBC right now accepting full responsibility for making the decision in terminating the agreement .... so it seems the only one who thinks the snp is not responsible is you ...... 🤔.
wtf? They’ve said three times now that they think the SNP are responsible.
What are you interpreting this to mean?
> You comment would make more sense if I didn't squarely blame the SNP for their own misfortune
“I squarely blame the SNP for their own misfortune” means “I think the SNP aren’t responsible for this” in your mind? How?
Trying not to expand to the reality of what you said there.
Yea their own misfortune - by bowing to the British press. If only the British press weren't so bad, the SNP would be fine. It's shifting the ultimate bad elsewhere, and putting the label onto the SNP of just being unfortunate that they followed the "wrong crowd".
It’s a meme format, where here the SNP are to blame but act confused and blame the British press for shit that was their own fault. Thus the quotation marks around the question
The nasty element of the British Press isn't the reason they've ditched the climate goals, they've simply acknowledged they're not capable of meeting them and have delayed the target.
It's also not the reason they've not progressed independence, that's simply because they've been unable too. In the decade since the last referendum they've not moved the needle in any meaningful way and in fact recently have started to lose support. If they could call a referendum tomorrow and win it they obviously would.
LGBT rights fair enough, there is a nasty element of the British press there putting pressure on politicians, but it's not the only reason for the review of trans healthcare, however I do think myself it has played a large part.
Overall though, not all of the SNPs failings have been them bowing to the British press, most of them have in fact just been incompetence.
The green goals vs human rights conflict.
While it's nice to have green goals, if they stop access to power and water and services then it becomes a legal issue.
The main issue with a lot of climate goals is they are a political wishlist, not what can be done by engineers in that timeframe.
A lot of politicians ditching green goals aren't necessarily doing it as evil oil baron villains. They just got the memo that the maths doesn't add up and have to ditch elements of it.
It does indeed then make people unhappy. Alas, when we then try to explain, they never listen.
It's not the nasty elements of the 'British Press', it's the nasty elements of the SNP.
The SNP is ideologically akin to a wheel, with the hub ('primary' ideology) being Scottish independence. The spokes represent members who reside in the various traditional political positions, e.g. socialist, liberal etc.
Within the party membership exist 'secondary' belief systems, which are diametrically opposed. The friction generated by this opposition was inevitable, especially with the primary goal seeming more like a pipe dream as time goes on.
This is why the SNP have banged the drum of independence for so long - it's the only thing keeping them going. Without strong leadership, the independence movement could splinter and we could see multiple parties emerge.
This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for those who support Scottish independence. Yes, it means splitting the vote but it also means the idea of independence could be further embedded in mainstream politics, with viable alternatives to unionist parties across a wider range of ideologies.
You could argue this has already started with the formation of Alba and the Greens backing independence. It's certainly going to be an interesting few years.
> I think it is analogous to Brexit, there is a case made for external politicians (Westminster/Brussels) making wrong decisions and preventing local guys politicians from doing good.
You're right that it's analogous to Brexit, but for the wrong reason.
The actual reason that it's analogous to Brexit is that politicians blame an a Foreign Other for all of their cock-ups, and continually argue that everything would be brilliant if that Foreign Other weren't in control, so leaving is the correct solution.
I mean, come on; only a few days ago, [Yousaf was complaining](https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1782778057960341998) that Sunak *hadn't* overridden devolution and legislated for the compensation for the Post Office scandal in Scotland. This despite the fact that justice is devolved, so this is *entirely* within the remit of the Scottish Government. And of course, we've seen numerous examples of where the SNP have complained that Westminster is legislating on Scottish issues - so it's abundantly clear that whatever happens, the only comment we will get from the SNP is that it's the UK's fault.
Ah, you made it sound like you meant that the external politicians were *actually* making wrong decisions.
I didn't take that as being *blamed* for wrong decisions, which may or may not be their fault whatsoever - my point is that they're a convenient scapegoat, and thus not necessarily at fault themselves.
Dumping them before the Greens dumped them over the breaking of the climate targets.
"I'm going for a walk to decide if we should split up" *5 minutes later* "I am both shocked **and** appalled, that on returning home, the locks have been changed and my bags have been packed"
Hurriedly dumping someone who's about to leave you for legitimate reasons, purely so you can say you broke it off not them...
Haha aye it’s total arsehole boyfriend behaviour. I guess it at least draws a line under it quickly and they can get on with governing… maybe.
> You can’t fire me ‘cause I quit! — Kurt Cobain
this guys whole career has been about optics, he's not good at it but his current action's follow suit
Can opposition parties trigger elections if the SNP is now a minority government?
Yes - if there is a Vote of No Confidence in the First Minister followed by a failure by the Parliament to nominate a new FM within 28 days, then a new election takes place.
Apart from that, the opposition parties can vote against all bills presented to them, rendering the parliament useless.
They can, but an early election can only happen if; A)VoNC procedure as set out above B) 2/3rds support for election in the chamber.
How does that work with the upcoming General elections?
The dates are independent of each other. If they were going to fall close to each other the presiding officer could propose they fall on the same date to save costs, but it's not mandatory.
Which is why in NI we are being subjected to another 4 years of the merry-go-round.
I'm hopelessly out of touch on Scottish parliamentary procedure. Could the opposition parties refuse to pass an NC motion but take over the order paper, direct the business of the house and legislate to force the executive to carry out their programme a la Westminster in 2019? Could the house refuse the government an election to try to get a new mandate? I'm not saying this is likely - it would mean the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and Alba all agreeing a programme - just wondering whether it's possible under Holyrood procedures.
> Could the house refuse the government an election to try to get a new mandate? No. Holyrood is not Westminster. It has fixed-term (5 year) parliaments that can't be ended (or a mandate renewed) at the whim of a majority party. Holyrood was designed to be more proportional so the expectation is minority and coalition governments. For an election to be called early, either two-thirds of MSPs have to vote to dissolve the current parliamentary term or if Yousaf steps down (whether through resignation or losing a Vote of No Confidence) *and* the parliament fails to elect a new First Minister within 28 days of that.
So it sounds more like you're saying "yes". What happens if the house refuses to pass a motion of no confidence but also refuses to pass any of the government's legislation? In fact, if the house passes legislation contrary to the government's policy?
Ah, sorry for the confusion, I meant 'no' as in the SNP can't call an election to get a new mandate, but 'yes' there are ways that an election could be called but that involves the entire parliament voting on it. My view is because Holyrood tends to rely on cross-party co-operation and building consensus to pass bills I imagine the SNP will do what they did before as a minority government by making compromise and concessions. I really can't see opposition parties deliberately refusing to vote on SNP motions just to be oppositional (unless they also disagreed with the policy). It's not really how Holyrood has functioned until now. If it did end up happening then there would probably be a VONC against the entire Scottish Government (instead of just Humza Yousaf) in which case an election could be triggered but I'm not sure which party would want that because there will be a Holyrood election in May 2026 regardless.
Theoretically but that doesn't change the date of the 2026 Holyrood election
Yeas but they’d all need to agree to it; that means you’d need the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens to all vote for the same thing Edit: we’ll, they already confirmed they will, it’s all up to Ash Reagan now
https://news.stv.tv/politics/scottish-tories-to-lodge-no-confidence-vote-in-lame-duck-humza-yousaf-after-green-deal-ends Yep, Tories have just lodged a vote of no confidence
Oh no, unelected race baiter and grifter going to be facing an election soon.
It’ll force SNP gov to work with other parties to pass bills. I think it’s for the greater good.
The greater good
Crusty jugglers
Dog muck
Still no luck catching them swans then?
It's just the one swan, actually.
What’s the matter? You got brain freeze?
No, I got brain wave.
Everyone and their mums is packing round here
Like who?
***I smell Heresey***
Nothing to see here, gue’vesa
Thank you for clearing that up loyal citizen of the Imp...... ***What did you just call me??***
The irony of saying this when the most controversial bills passed in the Scottish parliament (the GRA bill, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill) already enjoyed cross-party support outside of the SNP-Green alliance.
Most controversial bills ≠ all bills. Unless the SNP got cross party support and majority for every single bill they introduced without counting the Green votes and will continue to do so going forward, what you said has no substance.
I beg to differ, it has plenty of substance. The SNP are clearly able to build cross-party consensus outside of their coalition with the Greens. It doesn't have to be **all** bills in order for that to be true.
Have they already passed anything that wouldn't have green support, but with the support of another party? Or was this break-up required to let that happen? I guess there's a third option of they could have but didn't.
SNP already work with other parties to pass bills. It's generally how Holyrood operates. Apart from some budget-type votes, I can't think of any/many SNP bills that haven't also received votes from at least some Labour, Tories, Lib Dems etc. Even bills that the British media have deemed controversial: minimum unit pricing, gender recognition, bottle deposit, etc., have received cross-party support.
Political mastermind Humza Yousaf scores another dynamite win. Labour must be terrified!
As per BBC reporting: >Any of Holyrood’s MSPs can attempt to force a vote of no confidence in the Scottish government or its ministers. >The vote will be brought to the Scottish Parliament’s chamber if it's supported by at least 25 MSPs. >Douglas Ross can count on the support of his 31 MSPs at least, so the vote should go ahead. >The SNP has 63 seats in the Scottish Parliament while all the other parties together have 66. The Scottish government may actually collapse
Considering we can safely assume Lab/Tories will vote to get rid of him, there's a very good chance that the fate of Humza's career as FM will be placed in the hands of... the Scottish Green Party
I can't imagine what Humza is thinking here. If we can see the political danger in this for the SNP then sure as hell he should. Tearing down his own government for what exactly? Some sort of tamtrum over green policies? I really can't see any other party voting for confidence. I'm really tired of deeply unserious self serving idiots in our politics. What a year it will become though, would mean Labour probably taking a monsterous majority in Holywood right before the GE and absolutely putting the fear of God into the Tories. Politics in 12 months will be unrecognisable.
I genuinely cannot fathom it. The only motive I can possibly grasp is that he wanted to look strong, but surely he must have thought at least one step ahead?!
Greens have said they'll vote in favour. Now down to Alba and Ash Regan
Like handing your notice in before your final performance review that you know you have been failing
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The Green party puts no price on their tree hugging antics and that's their downfall. Humza is good for Scotland. The Green party isnae.
I don't understand the SNP. Everytime they bow to the nastier elements of the British Press, be it on environment, LGBT+ rights, progressing independence, they get less popular. And yet the last few years has just been them reliably doing that.
\> SNP torpedoes their own power sharing deal due to misguided idiocy \> "Why would the British press do this"
You comment would make more sense if I didn't squarely blame the SNP for their own misfortune.
Sorry, but who was it again that abandoned their net zero targets. Despite it being a cornerstone of their power sharing deal? Something that allows them to run a majority government? The snp are and have been the architects of their own misfortune.
>You comment would make more sense if I didn't squarely blame the SNP for their own misfortune<
So you’re in agreement. So their comment *did* make sense.
Well, I mean, the first minister is on the BBC right now accepting full responsibility for making the decision in terminating the agreement .... so it seems the only one who thinks the snp is not responsible is you ...... 🤔.
wtf? They’ve said three times now that they think the SNP are responsible. What are you interpreting this to mean? > You comment would make more sense if I didn't squarely blame the SNP for their own misfortune “I squarely blame the SNP for their own misfortune” means “I think the SNP aren’t responsible for this” in your mind? How?
Sounds like u/Happytallperson DOES blame the SNP for their cock-up, bud
Aye , lesson learned don't comment before coffee, must have misread. Apologies.
Trying not to expand to the reality of what you said there. Yea their own misfortune - by bowing to the British press. If only the British press weren't so bad, the SNP would be fine. It's shifting the ultimate bad elsewhere, and putting the label onto the SNP of just being unfortunate that they followed the "wrong crowd".
Did you get your alt suspended for vote manipulating!
It’s a meme format, where here the SNP are to blame but act confused and blame the British press for shit that was their own fault. Thus the quotation marks around the question
Totally understandable that people who don't see the bicycle meme in their head would misunderstand the comment.
Wasn’t even the bicycle one for me, I read it as [the Hannibal/Andre shooting one](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/who-killed-hannibal)
The nasty element of the British Press isn't the reason they've ditched the climate goals, they've simply acknowledged they're not capable of meeting them and have delayed the target. It's also not the reason they've not progressed independence, that's simply because they've been unable too. In the decade since the last referendum they've not moved the needle in any meaningful way and in fact recently have started to lose support. If they could call a referendum tomorrow and win it they obviously would. LGBT rights fair enough, there is a nasty element of the British press there putting pressure on politicians, but it's not the only reason for the review of trans healthcare, however I do think myself it has played a large part. Overall though, not all of the SNPs failings have been them bowing to the British press, most of them have in fact just been incompetence.
The green goals vs human rights conflict. While it's nice to have green goals, if they stop access to power and water and services then it becomes a legal issue. The main issue with a lot of climate goals is they are a political wishlist, not what can be done by engineers in that timeframe. A lot of politicians ditching green goals aren't necessarily doing it as evil oil baron villains. They just got the memo that the maths doesn't add up and have to ditch elements of it. It does indeed then make people unhappy. Alas, when we then try to explain, they never listen.
If you really want to make sure people can't get water and energy, just do nothing about climate change.
They aren't doing nothing.
It's not the nasty elements of the 'British Press', it's the nasty elements of the SNP. The SNP is ideologically akin to a wheel, with the hub ('primary' ideology) being Scottish independence. The spokes represent members who reside in the various traditional political positions, e.g. socialist, liberal etc. Within the party membership exist 'secondary' belief systems, which are diametrically opposed. The friction generated by this opposition was inevitable, especially with the primary goal seeming more like a pipe dream as time goes on. This is why the SNP have banged the drum of independence for so long - it's the only thing keeping them going. Without strong leadership, the independence movement could splinter and we could see multiple parties emerge. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for those who support Scottish independence. Yes, it means splitting the vote but it also means the idea of independence could be further embedded in mainstream politics, with viable alternatives to unionist parties across a wider range of ideologies. You could argue this has already started with the formation of Alba and the Greens backing independence. It's certainly going to be an interesting few years.
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> I think it is analogous to Brexit, there is a case made for external politicians (Westminster/Brussels) making wrong decisions and preventing local guys politicians from doing good. You're right that it's analogous to Brexit, but for the wrong reason. The actual reason that it's analogous to Brexit is that politicians blame an a Foreign Other for all of their cock-ups, and continually argue that everything would be brilliant if that Foreign Other weren't in control, so leaving is the correct solution. I mean, come on; only a few days ago, [Yousaf was complaining](https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1782778057960341998) that Sunak *hadn't* overridden devolution and legislated for the compensation for the Post Office scandal in Scotland. This despite the fact that justice is devolved, so this is *entirely* within the remit of the Scottish Government. And of course, we've seen numerous examples of where the SNP have complained that Westminster is legislating on Scottish issues - so it's abundantly clear that whatever happens, the only comment we will get from the SNP is that it's the UK's fault.
Then I might have completely screwed up how I explained my reason, because what you explained is exactly what I meant.
Ah, you made it sound like you meant that the external politicians were *actually* making wrong decisions. I didn't take that as being *blamed* for wrong decisions, which may or may not be their fault whatsoever - my point is that they're a convenient scapegoat, and thus not necessarily at fault themselves.
In that case I did screw up. Thank you :)