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

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.

During the leadership campaign, Yousaf indicated that another independence referendum was not going to happen anytime soon, with the polls suggesting that a majority of Scottish voters do not want one now, and the public still split on the outcome.

He has warned that the independence movement should not become stuck in a “quagmire” of process, but instead the party has to talk about policy, effectively restarting the yes campaign, pounding the pavements to try to win more undecided or novoters over.

Allies suggest that Yousaf, the first Scottish Asian and Muslim to become first minister, understands that to win over new voters, when most already hold fairly entrenched positions, he first has to convince them of the economic case.

They claim that she knew that she had run out of road after the supreme court ruled against another vote and internal splits on the de facto referendum, and so had to pass on the baton.

He needs to convince the Scots electorate that, despite being the “continuity Sturgeon” candidate throughout the leadership contest, he can actually take the SNP in a fresh direction, and prove wrong his detractors – who say he is just more of the same, but not as good.