Yousaf confirms he is resigning, saying he was not willing to trade his principles just to win no-confidence vote Humza Yousaf has arrived. He thanks journalists for coming and says last week he was here to announce the ending of the Bute House agreement, the power-sharing deal with the SNP. He says he still thought that was the right decision, for his party and for the country. He says he hoped to continue working with the Scottish Greens in a more informal. But he under-estimated how much hurt that decision caused, he says. He says, while a route to winning the no confidence motion was possible, he was not willing to compromise his principles. (That implies he was not willing to offer Alba the concessions it was demanding for Ash Regan’s vote). Yousaf says that is why he is resigning. After spending the weekend reflecting on what is best for my party, for the government and for the country I lead, I’ve concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm. I have therefore informed the SNP’s national secretary of my intention to stand down as party leader. We are now closing this blog, thanks for following developments today. You can read all our coverage on Humza Yousaf’s resignation Early evening summary Humza Yousaf has stepped down as Scotland’s first minister after failing to secure enough cross-party support to survive a major crisis with the Scottish Greens. As Severin Carrell, Libby Brooks and Pippa Crerar report, his resignation on Monday has thrown the Scottish National party into crisis, a little over a year after he took office, with the party’s former leader John Swinney quickly emerging as the favourite to become Scotland’s next first minister. Various bookmakers said they had stopped taking bets on Swinney. Swinney, who quit government after Nicola Sturgeon stood down in February 2023, confirmed he was “giving very careful consideration” to standing as a unity candidate, after coming under intense pressure from senior figures inside the SNP. Within the last few minutes Yousaf has posted a message on X thanking people for all the “kind messages” he has received since he made his announcement. People with depression or anxiety could lose access to sickness benefits, Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary has said, as part of major welfare changes that have been described as a “full-on assault on disabled people”. David Cameron, the foreign secretary, has urged Hamas to agree to a deal for a sustained 40-day ceasefire in Gaza and the release of potentially thousands of hostages and prisoners. The last SNP leadership contest was unusually brutal, and this one may be getting rough too. According to a report by Paul Hutcheon for the Daily Record, an SNP minister (unnamed) is saying that Kate Forbes would only be able to become first minister with Tory votes because some SNP MSPs would refuse to support her. The minister told Hutcheon: She would be mad to stand against Swinney. You cannot underestimate the turmoil she would bring to the party. Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, told BBC Scotland News that the Conservatives were not afraid of a Scottish election. He said: We have no fear of an election. [The SNP] are in decline in Scotland, we would love to have an election and get rid of them. I’m convinced they have had their day and people in Scotland now are interested in working with the United Kingdom. That is a brave statement. According to a projection based on recent polling, the Scottish Conservatives would lose around a third of their seats if there were a Holyrood election now. Kate Forbes, the former Scottish government finance secretary who was narrowly defeated in last year’s SNP leadership contest, is “actively considering” whether to run again, Connor Gillies from Sky News reports. Majority of Scots wanted Yousaf voted out of office before he resigned, poll suggests YouGov has released some new polling from Scotland, in a thread on X starting here. The polling, which was carried out before Humza Yousaf resigned, also found that by a margin of more than two to one, Scottish voters wanted MSPs to vote to remove him in the no confidence debate being planned. Some 55% of all Scots, and 40% of people who voted SNP in 2019, wanted him out, the poll suggests. John Swinney, the former Scottish deputy first minister who is now being urged by many in the SNP to stand to replace Humza Yousaf, has said the SNP should govern as a moderate left-of-centre party. Speaking in London, where he has been attending a Resolution Foundation conference, he said: I’ve always believed that the right place for the Scottish National party is as a moderate left-of-centre political party in the mainstream tradition of Scottish public opinion. You only ever win success if you’re in line with the mainstream of public opinion in the country and that’s where I’ve always endeavoured to make sure the SNP was positioned, and I think that’s where the SNP should be positioned in the future. The Department for Work and Pensions has now published its disability benefits green paper, Modernising Support for Independent Living, on its website. Heaton-Harris say he"s "reassured" by Irish government"s explanation of its new law affecting migrants arriving from UK Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, has said he is “reassured” over proposed Irish legislation on returning asylum seekers from Ireland to the UK, PA Media reports. PA says: The Irish justice minister Helen McEntee is to bring a proposal to cabinet on Tuesday around “returning” asylum seekers who had arrived in Ireland from the UK. Ireland’s deputy premier Micheál Martin said he had briefed British officials at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London today. He moved to assure them that the legislation would deal with the repercussions of a decision by Ireland’s high court, which found that the basis for designating the UK a “safe country” for asylum purposes was contrary to EU law. Martin said that the decision related to an agreement on “returning” asylum seekers to the UK – and vice versa – that was struck between the two governments after Brexit. “So basically, it is restoring the situation to where it was before the high court case of last March. That’s, in essence, what has been proposed,” Martin said at a joint press event in London with Heaton-Harris. Heaton-Harris said: “If this legislation is, as I believe it is and I’ve been assured it is, just setting us back in time to where we were and what we were dealing with, then I’m comfortable with that. But we are fully behind implementing our Rwanda scheme.” The two governments have been involved in a row over a reported increase in recent months in the number of people applying for asylum in Ireland who had crossed the Northern Ireland border. Martin said that Ireland’s attorney general had advised that legislation would be needed “to create a proper statutory basis for an agreement that we earlier had”. Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, is making a Commons statement now on the green paper on changes to the personal independence payment (Pip) disability benefit being published today. (See 10.33am.) He starts by apologising for the fact a copy of his text was submitted late to the speaker’s office and to the opposition. (See 4.02pm.) Because of the delay, the Commons was suspended for 10 minutes before Stride began his statement. Stephen Flynn says John Swinney only candidate to replace Yousaf "with experience to do job and unite party" Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Wesminster, has told the News Agents podcast that John Swinney is the only candidate to replace Humz Yousaf “with the experience to do the job and unite the party”. “There’s only one person with the experience to do the job and unite the party - I would encourage John Swinney to stand.” SNP’s Westminster leader @StephenFlynnSNP rules himself out as First Minister Humza Yousaf’s replacement