Humza Yousaf resigns. Is Scottish independence dead?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2024
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the stroke of midday, Humza Yousaf, Scotland's First Minister, made the announcement that just a week ago would have been unthinkable.
Acknowledging the miscalculations he made in the sacking of his Green cabinet members last week - and the confidence vote he would - in all likelihood - have lost - the head of the Scottish government resigned.
For fifteen years the SNP have been a political behemoth in Scotland - writing the rules of devolution and looking to a time of future independence. But after a year of utter political turmoil, is their time in power up?
Today, we look at how we got here, the mistakes made, and who can take the party forward.
We talk to a potential future leader, Stephen Flynn, and ask what this means for Labour at the General Election and for the shape of British politics more broadly.
Editor: Tom Hughes
Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus
Producer: Laura FitzPatrick
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Video Production: Shane Fennelly & Arvind Badewal
You can listen to this episode on Alexa - just say "Alexa, ask Global Player to play The News Agents"!
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.3 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.0 | Although, of course, as you can tell, I'm sad that my time as First Minister is ending. |
| 0:19.5 | But I am so grateful. I'm so blessed for having the opportunity that are afforded to so few |
| 0:27.6 | to lead my country. And who could ask for a better country to lead than Scotland? Thank you very much. |
| 0:37.0 | That was Humsey Youssef, Scotland's First Minister, resigning, admitting that he'd taken steps, miscalculations, |
| 0:46.1 | that had essentially paved the way to his downfall when he fired those two green members of the Cabinet last week. |
| 0:53.3 | It's hard to believe now, but only 18 months, two years ago, |
| 0:56.5 | the SMP looked completely dominant, politically impregnable in Scotland. |
| 1:01.4 | And yet here we are two resigned First Ministers later, |
| 1:04.5 | staring down the barrel of a third. |
| 1:06.9 | What does Yusuf's resignation mean for the SMP? |
| 1:10.1 | And what it will mean for the general election, not only in Scotland, but in the rest of the UK as well. |
| 1:14.7 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:19.2 | The newsagents. |
| 1:21.7 | It's Emily. |
| 1:22.7 | It's Lewis. |
| 1:23.5 | And Sopal, John Sopal, is on the Eurostar, but, breaking news, he's not on holiday. |
| 1:29.5 | And we know, of course, either way, he'll be gutted not to be here because it's a massive political day. |
| 1:34.0 | It is. It's a big day. We're not laughing. We're laughing at the fact that no one... A big breaking news story. And that is basically what we've got this morning, |
| 1:44.3 | because at 12 o'clock, Humsey Yusuf was back in Buttehouse in the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland. |
| 1:53.2 | And he gave the speech that had been predicted over the last 24 hours. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Global, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Global and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.