Only Scottish Conservatives have shown genuine opposition to Humza Yousaf's damaging SNP government – Craig Hoy

In the case of the Greens, that may have been because they’d just been unceremoniously removed from his government, less than 48 hours after the First Minister backed them to the hilt. But it can’t have been on any point of principle, because he was still defending and promising the continuation of the disastrous policies which the SNP-Green coalition had pursued. One minute he said it had been a great success, yet in the next breath it had somehow, mysteriously, “run its course”. In other words, he was ditching the Greens before they dumped him.

Everyone else was quick to come to the conclusion that Humza Yousaf’s time in office amounted to a long list of unmitigated disasters. He not only lived up to his promise to be the “continuity candidate” for Nicola Sturgeon’s tarnished and discredited legacy, he also managed to compound its failure with his own capacity for gaffes and miscalculations.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats deserve precious little credit for recognising this only after the Scottish Conservatives acted in Scotland’s interests by seeking to end his hapless period in office. Until that point, both parties had been quite happy to line up with the SNP and the Greens on a whole series of damaging and divisive policies, from reckless gender legislation to imposing higher taxes.

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But there is no doubt that Humza Yousaf was the principal agent of his own downfall. He could have disowned the Greens – a group of far-left, anti-growth extremists with political views too juvenile to be described “student politics”. It was clear to many, but not Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney or Humza Yousaf, that Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater should never have been let within a hundred miles of government.

He could have turned the SNP’s focus from the distractions, deflections and grievance-mongering of the Sturgeon years towards doing something to repair the damage that her government inflicted on our NHS, schools, police force, local services and a host of other priorities that actually mattered to Scots. But he didn’t.

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Instead, he doubled down, with inevitable consequences for his own leadership and his own party’s credibility. Now he has to own this. The tragedy is that Scotland will also have to live with the appalling damage that the SNP-Greens’ ill-judged and inflexible programme for government produced – a toxic political atmosphere, and the neglect of real priorities in the pursuit of separatist and “progressive” fantasies.

That danger, however, has not ended with Humza Yousaf’s departure from office. The SNP and the Greens have shown that they will not budge from their divisive agendas – Humza Yousaf’s resignation speech started by saying that he wouldn’t compromise and finished by berating other parties for not lining up to keep him in a job. Labour and the Lib Dems have shown no contrition for the fact that they have been quite happy to back these policies on multiple occasions.

Only Douglas Ross and the Scottish Conservatives have shown genuine opposition to a government that has inflicted immense damage on Scotland. We presented an alternative vision focused on real priorities, and put an end to Humza Yousaf’s dire time in office. When the general election comes, in key seats up and down the country, we are the only party that can do the same thing by getting rid of the rest of the SNP.

Craig Hoy is a Scottish Conservative MSP for South Scotland