The End of a Very Small Song

The SNP have dumped their Green coalition partners. But this will not solve Humza Yousaf's problems.

The SNP have sacked the Greens, collapsing the coalition which has governed Scotland since August 2021. Here are a few thoughts on why this has happened and what it might portend for the future of Scottish - and, indeed, British - politics.

I am actually on holiday this week but the collapse of the coalition between the Scottish National Party and the Greens is the kind of development which merits some commentary even in a week dominated by other, frankly more attractive, distractions.

The first thing to note about this termination is that it is very funny. According to Lorna Slater, one half of the Green leadership, “This is an act of political cowardice by the SNP, who are selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country.” Jings!

But, actually, it’s worse than that. According to Slater, “the most reactionary and backwards-looking forces within the first minister’s party have forced him to do the opposite of what he himself had said was in Scotland…