Senior SNP MSP Christine Graham joins calls for Humza Yousaf to end Bute House Agreement

MSP Christine Graham said the priorities of the two parties were “very different” and that the Bute House Agreement – which was forged by former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and Greens co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater after the 2021 Scottish Parliament election – had “run its course”.

Ms Graham’s comments echo similar statements by SNP politicians including Ivan McKee MSP, Joanna Cherry MP, and Alex Neil, who served in the cabinets of both Ms Sturgeon and her predecessor Alex Salmond.

The power-sharing deal was put under intense strain last week when the SNP’s Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan announced the Scottish Government had ditched its ambitious target to reduce emissions from 1990 levels by 75 per cent by 2030.

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The relationship became more difficult when it later emerged Scotland’s only gender clinic had paused the prescription of puberty blockers following the publication of the Cass Review into services in England.

Mr Harvie has said he will quit as Scottish Green Party leader if members vote to leave the Bute House Agreement at a meeting next month.

Asked about the Bute House Agreement on ITV Border, Ms Graham said: “I think it's run its course. I’ve been here when we had a minority government and I think there’s such a divergence between what the Greens want and what the SNP are looking for, I think the divergence is too great now and it’s in the interests of neither party to continue, so I’d be content if the SNP were to say ‘we’re going to work as a minority government’.”

She said she would prefer the SNP to end the agreement, rather than the Greens, adding: “The priorities for the Greens are very different from ours.

“I’m not talking about the economy, and the ecology and the climate, I’m talking about other issues that we have – very different from us. And I think that our priorities are different from theirs so we should not really continue in this arrangement. But it is not in my hands, unfortunately.”