THE First Minister has confirmed that the SNP's Holyrood group will meet to discuss the future of MSP Fergus Ewing.
It comes after the Inverness MSP voted to sack Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater earlier this year as he criticised her handling of the deposit return scheme (DRS).
Last week, he joined the Tories, Labour and LibDems to call on Humza Yousaf (below) to pause the short-term lets licensing scheme.
The former rural economy secretary said the “misconceived, costly and bureaucratic” system should be paused or it would cause “irreparable damage” to the sector.
The First Minister has said that Ewing’s behaviour was “serious” and that the Holyrood group would meet to discuss his future.
It was previously reported that Ewing was facing the loss of the whip although it’s been suggested that the death of his mother Winnie paused any action.
Regarding Ewing’s decision to side with the Tories over Slater on the DRS, Yousaf told the Daily Record: “It was a very serious matter indeed. And there was, I think, understandable reasons why the group chose not to deal with internal party discipline at the end of the parliamentary term, but clearly the group may want to pick those matters up when they return.
“There’s not been a resolution to that issue. Voting against a government minister on a vote of confidence and voting with the Conservatives in that regard is a serious matter.
“So the group will meet to discuss that and it’s an internal matter which I don’t intend to comment on anymore.”
Ewing has also been critical of the Bute House Agreement of late, having called for a fresh vote on the power-sharing agreement at the beginning of August.
The agreement was backed by around 95% of SNP members when it was created in 2021 although Ewing said he expected a fresh vote would produce a “very different” result.
He has also previously dismissed the Greens as “wine bar revolutionaries” and referred to them as “extremists.”
