Humza is running 'a zombie government' taunt the Scottish Tories
Humza Yousaf has been accused of running a ‘zombie government’ while he waits to find out if the Greens will pull the plug on his ‘coalition of chaos’.
Concerns were raised yesterday that the government will be in a state of ‘paralysis’ until Green party members decide if they should scrap the Bute House Agreement.
The First Minister is already under growing pressure from within his party to allow SNP members a vote on the issue, ahead of Green activists having their say next month.
Now opponents raised concerns about the impact the vacuum will have on Mr Yousaf’s administration.
It comes as Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie yesterday faced a motion of no confidence, and confirmed he would step down if his party votes to leave government.
Humza Yousaf’s SNP is in limbo while he waits to find out if the Greens will pull the plug on the Bute House agreement
Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy said: ‘Scotland can’t afford to endure weeks of a zombie government while Green members decide on the future of their pact with the SNP.
‘This coalition of chaos has been a disaster for Scotland and it’s a measure of how painfully weak Humza Yousaf is that he’s now at the mercy of another party’s vote.
‘If he had any backbone, he’d be pulling the plug on the Bute House Agreement himself rather than leaving the country in limbo while others determine whether he leads a majority or minority government.
‘The anti-growth Greens should never have been invited into government in the first place and so long as the First Minister is desperately trying to placate them – as he did with the vacuous ministerial statement on the Cass review – Scotland is in a state of paralysis.’
Scottish Labour business manager Martin Whitfield said: ‘Any shred of credibility the Scottish Greens had left has been abandoned with Scotland’s 2030 climate targets.’
Former SNP minister Ash Regan, who defected to Alba, yesterday lodged a no confidence motion in Mr Harvie, the Zero Carbon Buildings Minister, for ‘siding with ideology over evidence’ by refusing to back the Cass review on child gender services and the pause on prescriptions of puberty blockers.
But the move failed to win the support of opposition MSPs. Alba general secretary Chris McEleny later branded it ‘utterly bizarre’ that Labour and the Conservatives were not supporting the motion.
He said: ‘The public will remember if, when it came to getting rid of Patrick Harvie or not, Labour and the Tories sat on their hands and kept him in his job.’
Mr Harvie said a vote by the Scottish Greens to end the Bute House Agreement, would be ‘a mistake’.
He said that, if the Greens leave government, many people will think they are ‘just a party that walks away when things get difficult’.
The issue was not discussed at yesterday’s meeting of the Cabinet, despite Nationalist MP Joanna Cherry calling for her party to vote on it.
A Scottish Government source said: ‘The Scottish Government was urging calm, and for people to use the time and space between last week and the Green vote in May to consider the issue in a dispassionate manner: more light, less rushing to judgment in the heat of the moment.
‘I’d say it’s important not to make the end of the BHA a self-fulfilling prophecy.’
