FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
LONDON – He preferred to resign rather than be disqualified by Parliament: the Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, he left office just over a year after taking over leadership of the Edinburgh Executive. An inglorious end for the first Muslim prime minister and of Pakistani origin leading one of the four nations that make up the United Kingdom.
Yousaf he could barely hold back his tears during the farewell speech: but his destiny had appeared marked since last week, when its majority, based on the alliance between the nationalists and the greens, had collapsed and the Labor and Conservative oppositions had presented two motions of no confidence, which would have been voted on on Wednesday.
The governing coalition had imploded after Yousaf’s nationalists had announced abandoning the ambitious target of cutting emissions by 75% by 2030: a backtracking that had sparked the ire of ecologists, already annoyed because the prime minister had accepted the conclusions of the Cass report, the investigation commissioned by the English healthcare system which had branded all pediatric medicine on the subject of gender transition as unfounded. The Scottish Greens are staunch supporters of transgender ideology and the Edinburgh government tried to pass a law on gender self-identification last year, which London vetoed.
Yuosaf he had collected an inheritance that was very difficult to manage: he, nicknamed “Humza the useless”, had found himself collecting the pieces left by Nicola Sturgeon, the prime minister who had to resign last year overwhelmed by the reactions to the trans law and the party’s financial scandals (she is under investigation and her husband has been indicted). Since Scottish nationalism has slipped down a slippery slope and the polls now show them behind the Labor Party: if we went to early elections, as is possible, their majority would be further reduced.
After 17 years in power, the nationalists have led Scotland into a dead end: e the dream of independence fades away increasingly on the horizon.
