Humza Yousaf must work to prevent his coalition of support from splintering

New leader needs to convince Scotland that he can take the SNP in a fresh direction

The first act of Humza Yousaf’s leadership of the SNP was to fire off a letter to Rishi Sunak demanding a section 30 order which, if granted, would trigger the mechanism to allow a second Scottish independence referendum to go ahead.

His predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, had already tried this in 2017 and again in 2019, but her approach failed when the UK government refused to agree to it. Downing Street has already made it clear that Sunak’s response to Yousaf is no different.