Humza Yousaf’s political future hangs by a thread. What might happen next?

The First Minister’s decision to end the power-sharing agreement between the SNP and the Greens on Thursday proved a potentially catastrophic miscalculation.

He now faces two votes of no confidence in the coming days – one aimed at him as First Minister, and one at the wider Scottish Government.

The tight parliamentary arithmetic in Holyrood means the support of SNP MSPs alone will not be enough to save him.

Mr Yousaf has written to the other parties in Holyrood in a desperate bid to cling on to power as the leader of a minority government.

But what are his options as he seeks a path through the carnage? And what happens if he fails?

A deal with the Greens

After scrapping the Bute House Agreement, Mr Yousaf may have hoped to convince the Greens to back him on a more informal basis.

Certainly, this is the option that offers the most stability. The SNP and the Greens together have a comfortable majority.

Unfortunately for him, the First Minister seems to have completely misjudged how the Greens would react. They are furious, to put it mildly.

On Thursday, the party confirmed it would back a motion of no confidence in Mr Yousaf, insisting he could no longer be trusted.

Mr Yousaf said he did not intend “to make them as angry as they clearly are” and urged them to reconsider.

On Friday, a source close to the First Minister suggested the Greens could yet be persuaded. “Nothing is certain,” they told The Scotsman. “There are a lot of moving parts to this.”

However, Greens co-leader Lorna Slater appears to have slammed the door firmly shut on any deal.

“We will vote in support of a vote of no confidence against Humza Yousaf,” she told BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show. “I cannot imagine anything at this point that could change that position. This was a spectacular breach of trust.”

A deal with Alba

Alex Salmond has said his Alba Party is prepared to come to Mr Yousaf’s aid if certain “reasonable proposals” are agreed to. The support of Ash Regan, Alba’s sole MSP, would be enough to get Mr Yousaf over the line and out of “a very tight corner”.

However, it’s not that simple. Firstly, this would prove hugely controversial within sections of the SNP, where Mr Salmond remains a deeply unpopular figure.

“Alex obviously loving all this attention this morning, as he should, with his party having never had anybody elected to anything,” tweeted long-serving SNP MP Pete Wishart on Sunday. “He now wants to exert influence over our Government and he must be told quite clearly that can never, ever, happen.”

The idea of an electoral pact between the two parties – dismissed as a “fantasy” by Mr Yousaf’s team – met with a scathing reaction from SNP MP Stewart McDonald.

“Never a question we could do a deal with Salmond - a former host on RT,” he tweeted. “It would go down like a bucket of cold sick with voters and be met with horror in European capitals. To cut a deal with such a figure as Russian bombs thud into Ukraine would be reputation shredding.”

Secondly, the support of Alba alone would not provide Mr Yousaf with the majority required to pass legislation. He would have to rely on MSPs from other parties to get stuff done, and to pass future budgets.

That is, of course, how minority administrations in Holyrood have always operated. But Mr Yousaf may face a particularly hostile parliament.

A deal with another party

Mr Yousaf was never likely to win the support of any of the unionist parties in Holyrood, and so it proved.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross called his letter “humiliating and embarrassing”, while Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said Mr Yousaf was “out of time”.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said the First Minister had “run out of road”. None of these responses will have surprised the First Minister.

Mr Yousaf resigns

In the event that Mr Yousaf resigns, either before or after the confidence vote, MSPs will have 28 days to choose a new First Minister by a simple majority. Mr Yousaf would not be compelled to quit as a result of the no confidence vote against him as First Minister, but in practice his position would be untenable.

However, if the vote of no confidence in the Government is successful, both the First Minister and his ministers would be required to resign. Again, this would start a 28-day period for Holyrood to choose a new First Minister.

The SNP may seek to put forward a candidate who could gain the support of the Greens. Jenny Gilruth, the education secretary, and Neil Gray, the health secretary, are worth keeping an eye on.

Kate Forbes, who ran against Mr Yousaf in last year’s leadership election, has strong support within a section of the party but would be very unlikely to win the backing of the Greens. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily rule her out.

Holyrood election

If MSPs cannot decide on a new First Minister, parliament is dissolved and an extraordinary election is called. This has never happened in the 25-year history of devolution, and it seems an unlikely outcome. But we live in unusual times.

The only other way for an early election to be called is for a two-thirds majority of MSPs to vote for it. Again, given the SNP has 63 out of the 129 MSPs, this seems unlikely.

It is also worth noting that the scheduled election in 2026 would still take place regardless.