EMMA COWING: Humza Yousaf's obsession with gender politics showed an absolute contempt for women

First Nicola Sturgeon. Now Humza Yousaf. It is clear to me that there is one core issue that has brought down both First Ministers: the failure to protect women and girls amid an obsession with gender politics.

Both hitched their wagon to it. Both were so burned they lost their jobs. Yet whoever replaces Yousaf will, thanks to the manipulative power of the Scottish Greens, find themselves in exactly the same position.

Most Scots, I think, are utterly baffled as to why the country's entire political system has become so entangled in a minority issue that affects so few members of the population.

Most of us – worried about our jobs and the cost of living, the state of the NHS and our schools – simply cannot understand why the SNP has become so captivated by identity politics.

And yet Sturgeon was clearly entranced by the issue. It would have been on the table when the Bute House Agreement formalising the SNP's co-operation with the Green Party was made, back in the heady days of August 2021, when she talked about a 'ground-breaking' coalition.

First Minister Humza Yousaf pictured attending a press conference at Bute House on Monday where he said he will resign as SNP leader

Most of us – worried about our jobs and the cost of living, the state of the NHS and our schools – simply cannot understand why the SNP has become so captivated by identity politics. And yet Sturgeon (pictured in March 2023) was clearly entranced by the issue 

In concert with her new friends in the Greens, Sturgeon then pushed through her wrong-headed Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

READ MORE: Tearful Humza Yousaf QUITS admitting he cannot survive Holyrood confidence vote and 'underestimated' backlash from axing coalition with Greens - as SNP plunges deeper into chaos

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Initially passed at Holyrood in December 2022, it would have jeopardised the rights of women and girls by allowing biological males into female spaces and handed out gender recognition certificates to anyone who asked after three months, and to 16-year-olds after six. 

This, despite vocal protests from thousands of women in Scotland who were concerned about their own safety, who camped outside Holyrood to protest, who begged their female First Minister to consider their words, and listen to their requests.

Sturgeon's response? She called anyone who objected to the notion of self-ID 'deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly racist'. And by early 2023, Sturgeon had arguably become the politician in Britain most closely associated with the concept of gender self-ID.

It was to be her undoing. Soon afterwards, the voices of women across Scotland who felt pushed to the side and ignored swelled to a chorus, Sturgeon found herself in hot water over the case of Isla Bryson, a double rapist being housed in the female prison estate. It was a test case for rushed legislation that backfired badly.

This, despite vocal protests from thousands of women in Scotland who were concerned about their own safety (protestors pictured in Glasgow on February 5, 2023)

Sturgeon found herself in hot water over the case of Isla Bryson (pictured), a double rapist being housed in the female prison estate. It was a test case for rushed legislation that backfired badly

Isla Bryson attacked two women in Clydebank and Glasgow in 2016 and 2019 while known as Adam Graham (pictured)

JK Rowling described Sturgeon as a 'destroyer of women's rights'

Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars referred to the issue as 'Sturgeon's poll tax' while JK Rowling described her as a 'destroyer of women's rights'.

READ MORE: QUENTIN LETTS: Hokey Humza's chin crumpled like a discarded crisp packet as he quit as First Minister

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Days after being repeatedly asked in a news conference, and in the Scottish parliament, whether she believed Bryson was a woman, leading to tetchy exchanges with journalists and fellow politicians alike, Sturgeon had gone, tearful yet not contrite, and paving the way for Yousaf to step into her shoes.

One of his first tasks? To drag the country into a doomed-before-it-started fight with Westminster over the Gender Recognition Reform Bill after Rishi Sunak's government controversially decided to block it.

All because the Greens signalled they would walk if he didn't. Yousaf had shown the women of Scotland his hand, telling them he was willing to abandon vast swathes of the population in pursuit of the Greens' spoon-fed woke agenda.

In appeasing a party that represented fewer than 10 per cent of Scottish voters, he let down the vast majority of the nation.

It set the tone for the rest of Yousaf's hapless premiership. This is a man who steered in a new hate-crime law that specifically left out women. And while there are plans in place for a new stand-alone law on misogyny, it will also include trans women (already protected by the hate crime law) because, Yousaf has claimed, 'they will often be the ones who suffer threats of rape or threats of disfigurement for example.'

Members of the Cabaret Against The Hate Speech group hold a counter-demonstration at the Let Women Speak rally organised by the group Standing for Women in George Square on February 5, 2023

Supporters of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill with their banners in Glasgow

Demonstrators against the Gender Recognition Reform Bill take part in the Let Women Speak rally on February 5

It was a claim made without a shred of evidence and caused many women to feel they were being abandoned by their government. JK Rowling was once again on hand, this time describing Yousaf as having 'absolute contempt for women'.

Now Yousaf has fallen on his sword in the manner of his predecessor, with a resignation speech in which he too was tearful, yet not contrite.

The danger now is that any new First Minister will, with a minority government, still need the Greens' backing if they want to achieve anything in Holyrood. Despite the disaster of the past three years they hold the keys to power in Scotland, so the country will remain mired in gender politics. Actual politics – getting things done about the issues that matter to people – remain a pitiful sideshow.

Emma Cowing is associate editor of the Scottish Daily Mail.