Following early morning activity in Charlotte Square the First Minister Humza Yousaf ended the coalition agreement with the Scottish Greens.
Opposition parties have commented on the dissolution on the agreement entered into by former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to ensure that the government had a majority in Holyrood.
Scottish Labour Deputy Leader Jackie Baillie said: “This chaotic and incompetent government is falling apart before our eyes while Scots pay the price.
“Humza Yousaf is too weak to hold his own government together and he is too weak to deliver for Scotland.
“Three years into the Bute House Agreement the promises the SNP and Greens made have been torn to shreds.
“While Humza Yousaf is ditching the Bute House Agreement, he cannot escape the fact that it’s the SNP that has left almost one in six Scots on NHS waiting lists, gutted public services and failed to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.
“None of this changes the fact that it is SNP failures that have left Scots with higher bills, higher taxes, fewer jobs and a health care service on the brink.
“The collapse of this ill-fated marriage was inevitable but Scotland needs an entirely new government.
“Only Scottish Labour can deliver the change Scotland needs. ”
Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy said: “The collapse of this toxic coalition is an utter humiliation for Humza Yousaf, who hailed it as ‘worth its weight in gold’ and continued to back it to the hilt right until the end.
“The First Minister’s judgement is so poor that he couldn’t see what a malign influence the anti-growth Greens have been in government and his authority so weak that he was bounced into this U-turn by his own MSPs.
“It beggars belief that the Greens were invited into government in the first place – but even more astonishing that Humza Yousaf allowed them to call the shots on issues like abandoning oil and gas, further delays to dualling the A9 and A96, devastating fishing curbs and gender ideology.
“Humza Yousaf’s year as SNP leader has been a disastrous mix of scandals, infighting and policy U-turns. The collapse of the power sharing pact he staked his reputation on is not just humiliating, it highlights once again how inept and out his depth he is.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “The two partners to this failed agreement are at each others’ throats. They are now trying to blame each other, but in reality they have both failed the people of Scotland.
“Together they have cut our NHS off at its knees, butchered the housing budget, junked climate targets and made life harder for businesses. Islanders still don’t have the ferries they desperately need and Scottish schools are tumbling down the international rankings.
“Two clowns have left the clown car, but the circus continues. We don’t just need an end to the Bute House Agreement, we need an end to this entire government.”
Pamela Nash, chief executive of Scotland in Union, said: “The Bute House Agreement was always about independence and nothing else.
“It is the only thing either party cares about, and the only thing that held them together.
“Now the SNP and the Greens are suffering the consequences of being so wildly out of touch with the people of Scotland.
“They failed on the NHS, failed on education, failed on climate change, and now they have failed to hold it all together.”
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
