Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf did the inevitable yesterday and told the Scottish Greens that he was ending their power-sharing deal, demonstrating the ‘realpolitik’ of renewable policy.

The Bute House Agreement had kept the SNP-Green alliance with a slim majority, but the fracture lines were clear after the rejection of predecessor Sturgeon’s pledge to cut carbon emissions by 75 per cent in Scotland by 2030; a U-turn too far that made it impossible for the power-sharing to last.

Increasingly the ideas of an economically independent Scotland, always a shaky proposition, were at odds with a radical green agenda that included stopping North Sea oil and gas production.

There is clear anger on all sides, with Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater MSP accusing the SNP of “selling out future generations by walking away from the Bute House Agreement”.

Yousaf arguably had more lose, but with the Greens due to vote next month on whether to tear up the Bute House Agreement, in the end it he that pulled the trigger, leaving Holyrood in something of a political storm and the Scottish Conservatives calling for a vote of no confidence and Labour going further and threatening to force a vote of no confidence in the whole Scottish Government.

Where this leaves Holyrood, and its green policies remains to be seen.

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