© Reuters/Russell CheyneHumza Yousaf speaks at the Scottish National Party (SNP) conference in Glasgow, Scotland, October 10, 2017.
Yousaf, born to Pakistani immigrants in Glasgow, built an infamous reputation as a woke activist politician going into the 2023 elections. His rabid pro-immigration stance and consistent arguments in favor of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) should have been a red flag to the Scottish public; however, with an increasingly progressive voting population Yousaf narrowly scored a victory. Here is Humza in 2020, giving a speech admonishing the "whiteness" of the Scottish government.
Keep in mind that Scotland is 96% white. For most people logic would dictate that having a majority white government makes perfect sense given Scotland's demographics. This is something that Yousef and his progressive ilk have set out to change.
At the beginning of 2024 the former First Minister sought to launch a pro-migrant propaganda campaign, claiming that open immigration policies lead to economic benefits for Scotland. Of course, as with all politicians that make this assertion, he offered no concrete statistics to support the theory.
Beyond his insistence on going against the growing public opposition in Scotland to more migrants being allowed into the country, Yousaf's biggest mistake was the passage of his now wildly unpopular "Hate Crime Act." The law which recently went into effect criminalized many forms of speech including criticism or skepticism of gender fluid theory and trans identity. Misgendering and misuse of a trans person pronouns could now land a Scottish citizen in jail.
In response, the Scottish public flooded law enforcement agencies with fake calls accusing various trans activists and even political leaders of various hate crimes. Police were so overwhelmed by the paperwork that any effort to enforce the law has ground to a halt.
As we have detailed again and again (here, here, and here), his hate-crime law was an utter disaster - that everyone saw coming - and before his resignation, just 29 per cent of Scottish National Party voters believe Yousaf is doing a good job, while 36 per cent think he has been poor in office.
Consequently, Yousaf's popularity among his own voters is now minus seven, down from plus 14 in January, a massive drop.
As we have highlighted, under the new 'hate crime' legislation, anyone deemed to have been verbally 'abusive', in person or online, to a transgender person, including "insulting" them could be hit with a prison sentence of up to seven years.
As a reminder, Police received 8000 'hate crime' complaints in just the first week of the law coming into play, equating to more than the annual total of all hate crime reports for all previous years.
© Scottish GovernmentCaption
© Scottish Government
The hate crime law received backlash from every corner of the UK, including from more liberal personalities like Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
...and now, he's gone!
In an emotional address, Yousef said:
"While a route through this week's motion of no confidence was absolutely possible, I am not willing to trade my values and principles or do deals with whomever simply for retaining power.
"Therefore, after spending the weekend reflecting on what is best for my party, for the government and for the country I lead I have 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 and ask that she commences a leadership contest for my replacement as soon as possible."
His decision comes two days after expressly denying that he would resign.
Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, said Humza Yousaf made the right decision to resign as Scotland's First Minister. The Tory Cabinet minister said:
"It was the right thing for the First Minister to resign.But, amid the political division in his coalition, as The Telegraph's Gordon Rayner says "Humza Yousaf's hate crime and trans laws will be his divisive legacy".
"Humza Yousaf's leadership has lurched from crisis to crisis from the very start, and he could not command the confidence of the Scottish Parliament."
In truth, the public never wanted Mr. Yousaf as First Minister: opinion polls before his election consistently showed that Kate Forbes, his socially conservative rival for the leadership, was far more popular with both SNP supporters and voters as a whole. Humza Yousaf said he will remain as First Minister of Scotland until his successor as SNP leader has been elected.
If Scotland secedes from the UK and rejoins the EU, he will be back in office ...