FORMER first minister Humza Yousaf has said he “f***** up” in his sacking of the Scottish Greens from his government which resulted in his resignation.
Unhappy about the ditching of government climate targets, Green members forced a vote on the Bute House Agreement, which would have forced its collapse.
But before the vote was held, Yousaf decided to sack co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater from his government and bring the deal to an end.
In response, the Greens said they would back a motion of no confidence in his premiership, effectively forcing Yousaf’s resignation after just over a year in the job.
Appearing at an Edinburgh Festival Fringe event with broadcaster Matthew Stadlen on Thursday, the former first minister said he was willing to own up to his political mistakes.
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Yousaf said his “phone blew up” in the minutes after the broadcast.
“It wasn’t from the usual malcontents in my party, but reasonable, supportive people, saying this makes the Bute House Agreement very difficult to sustain and I need to think whether to continue it or not,” he continued.
“The miscalculation I made, is you tend to make your mistakes when you think like a politician in a political bubble and you forget the human dimension.
“And what I did, in my miscalculation was to go, well, the Greens rely so heavily on the SNP for the list vote, if they vote against the SNP Government, and the SNP First Minister, it will be political suicide.
“Of course, the human dimension, which you must always think about, is you’re bringing in two of your ministers into Bute House and sacking them very publicly, and they are going to react very badly to that.”
He added: “I always said to myself, when I entered politics, that there were two things worth trying to do. One is never trade my principles or values, the other is when it’s time to go, own your mistakes that you make.
“Look, I frankly, f***** up.”
In the hours before his resignation, it was reported Yousaf was in talks with the Alba Party to secure the vote of its lone MSP Ash Regan – who defected from the SNP under his leadership.
But he told the crowd such a deal would have been “impossible”, because party leader, and former first minister, Alex Salmond was pushing for an electoral pact between the two parties.
But Yousaf said there was “no way” he would help in “rehabilitating Alex Salmond in the political sphere”.
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During the conversation Yousaf also described X/Twitter owner Elon Musk as “one of the most dangerous men on the planet”.
The comments come as Musk deleted a repost on the website earlier on Thursday where he promoted a false claim about detainment camps being set up in the Falkland Islands for those involved in violent riots in the past week.
The world’s richest man has repeatedly weighed in on the disorder seen in the UK in the wake of the murders of three young girls in Southport, including dubbing the Prime Minister “two-tier Keir” and suggesting “civil war is inevitable” in the country.
Speaking about Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, the former first minister described he and Musk as “bosom buddies”, going on to say of the X owner: “I have to say, in my opinion, he is one of the most dangerous men on the planet.
“He is accountable to nobody, he has vast wealth at his fingertips and he uses it for some of the most wicked evil I’ve seen.”
Speaking at an event with broadcaster Matthew Stadlen, Yousaf added: “He is not an idiot – Elon Musk is very smart, very tech-savvy.”
Musk could research the claims he amplifies on social media, the former first minister said, but he chooses not to.
Yousaf pointed to the since-deleted repost of a faked headline purporting to be from the Daily Telegraph, claiming Prime Minister Keir Starmer was planning detention camps in the Falkland Islands for rioters.
The Prime Minister, he said, has an opportunity to seek to regulate social media companies.
Yousaf, however, said he did not believe X should be shut down in the UK.
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