I'm wondering how many people outside Scotland (and especially outside the UK) are aware at the moment that we have a Scottish First Minister (Humza Yousaf) who...

is a Muslim

is really pro-LGBTQIA+ rights

has Palestinian in-laws, some of whom (his parents-in-law specifically) were trapped in Gaza until a couple of days ago and apparently are very traumatised by the bombing etc.; some of whom (including a brother-in-law who's a doctor and has refused to leave) are still there

as far as I'm aware Humza and his family received no sympathy or solidarity from any of the English party leaders over this which is a fucking disgrace (I'd be delighted to find out I'm wrong on this one, so if anyone has reliable sources that indicate I am please let me know!)

has also gone out of his way to express solidarity and empathy with Israeli victims of Hamas, including visiting a synagogue and being hugged by a relative of one of the October 7th victims

I mean, he's not by any means perfect (rather too centrist for my taste, at least by Scottish standards, and not doing as much on climate change as I'd like (though at least the SNP being in coalition with the Scottish Greens helps), but just... he's overall a good'un. Especially by politician standards.

(Also Elon Musk has finally noticed that Scotland has a left-of-centre, pro-LGBTQIA+ rights, pro-choice, Muslim First Minister and is apparently EXTREMELY FURIOUS, so expect the global far right to start getting really seriously unpleasant about all this and probably very Scotophobic as well as Islamophobic about it in three, two, one...)

Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland is calling for an urgent ceasefire

Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf, has issued a strong condemnation against proposals by Israeli government members to relocate Gazans and establish Israeli settlements in Gaza.

He labelled these plans as ethnic cleansing and urged for them to be denounced unequivocally.

Source

Humza Yousaf

Good News!

Well.

£10 on Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf being forced to resign in the next three or fours weeks, the fucking numpty :)

Thank *fuck*; Humza Yousaf has won the SNP Leadership election.

I seriously hope he doesn’t make me eat my words. But even if he turns out to be a mealy-mouthed centrist, at least he actually has a belief in basic human rights, as opposed to the other two candidates, one of whom was an active GC cult paid-up TERF who has been making life incredibly difficult for sex workers of all genders by trying to introduce the Nordic model in Scotland, and the other who was a member of a fringe Christian cult with *incredibly* misogynist, transphobic, homophobic and anti-sex worker views.

He has also publicly promised to fight the incredibly dodgy Westminster block of the democratic GRA, which is another point in his favour.

From a somewhat more abstract viewpoint, it is actually pretty cool that both the UK Prime Minister and Scottish First Minister will be brown people from non-Christian faith and cultural backgrounds; Yousaf is Muslim and Rishi Sunak Hindu. Much as both Sunak and Suella Braverman have given us all *ample* evidence that being members of oppressed groups is no barrier to pushing highly racist policies as well as those incredibly oppressive in pretty much every other way.

mother in law of Scotland first minister pleads for help from Gaza and cries for Palestinians.

So our First Minister ripped up the power sharing agreement he had with the greens, aka the thing actually propping up his government, in order to backtrack on the net zero targets his party had agreed to. Pissing off the one group of people who are propping up your party in a parliament that's otherwise entirely hostile to your leadership turns out to be, in a surprise to nobody, political suicide. I've never seen a politician self-sabotage so spectacularly fast. What a fucking idiot

Humza Yousaf

Incredible moment for representation, Scotland has its first emo First Minister!