End of days for the SNP-Green coalition?

At every level, the Scottish Government’s environmental policies are in ruins

It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Humza Yousaf after a week like this. At least, that’s what commentators are supposed to say when a politician is sinking beneath the waves of misfortune. Of course they’re really just laughing up their sleeves at how Humza “Useless” is living up to his moniker and waiting for the next calamity.

On Monday the row over the botched introduction of the Hate Crime Act was reverberating across Scotland, along with poll results suggesting that only 29 per cent of SNP voters still thought Humza Yousaf was doing a good job. On Tuesday, the First Minister delivered a garbled and confused response to the Cass Report on gender identity services. On Wednesday the news leaked that Scottish Government was about to abandon its “world leading” target for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 75% from the levels in 1990.

On Thursday the former chief executive of the SNP, Peter Murrell -husband of Nicola Sturgeon - was rearrested and charged by police with “embezzlement of funds”. Operation Branchform, the three year police investigation into the finances of the SNP had claimed its first victim.

This concatenation of crises was running the Scottish government’s spin doctors dizzy. Ministers ran for cover, leaving Humza Yousaf increasingly exposed. It was the worst week yet in the First Minister’s “annus horriblis”.

Now, there might be some benefit in having such a collision of bad news stories since they crowd each other off the front pages. A good week to buy bad news perhaps - except there was just too much of it. The critical mass of chaos is clearly damaging the credibility of the SNP government only months away from a general election that could decide Humza Yousaf’s future.

Perhaps the most serious setback was abandonment of those emissions targets. That has infuriated the SNP’s cheerleaders in the influential “third sector” environmental charities like Friends of the Earth. These are the very youth-oriented groups that Nicola Sturgeon hoped to lock into the independence cause by negotiating the Bute House coalition agreement with the Scottish Green Party in 2021. Activists in the Green Party are questioning the value of remaining in coalition with the SNP if it can’t keep its Net Zero promises. So just how solid is the SNP environmental agenda? Read on.